


Ask Nicer Than That

by AuthorMAGrant



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura (Voltron) Lives, Amicable Divorce, Angst with a Happy Ending, Atlas is a good ship, Blades of Mom-ora, Galran child OC, Holt sibling shenanigans, Hunk pulls no punches, Hurt/Comfort, Keith & Romelle co-parenting, Keith's the emotionally mature one, Kolivan is an awkward dad, Lance & Allura get their HEA, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season 8 (Voltron) Fix-It, Protective Dad Shiro, Protective Matt Holt, Respect of each other’s physical boundaries because that’s sexy as hell, Shay is an excellent auntie, Shiro knows he's a mess and is trying to fix it, feral Romelle, fighting/violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26909629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorMAGrant/pseuds/AuthorMAGrant
Summary: Five years after Allura's disappearance, all Shiro has to show for his "heroic" life is a failed marriage and an emptiness he can't fill on Earth. He heads to New Altea with little more than the dim hope he can fix everything he finally realizes he's broken.Five years after Shiro walked down the aisle and out of his life for good, Keith has finally made a place for himself in the galaxy, working peace keeping missions for the Blades and helping Lance search for Allura. It's not the path he dreamed his life would take, but change isn't always bad. At least, not until his past catches up to him to offer an apology and to ask for a second chance.It's time for a reckoning, one that will decide once and for all whether they'll move forward together, or part for good this time.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Matt Holt/Keith - Relationship, Past Curtis/Shiro (Voltron) - Relationship
Comments: 46
Kudos: 147





	1. I took advantage of myself and felt fine

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter titles come from "Buried Myself Alive" by The Used.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From hero to zero.

“It’s final. The divorce, I mean.”

“Huh.”

Shiro wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting Matt to say. Honestly, he was shocked Matt had answered his call at all. They hadn’t had a real conversation in almost five years. Taking that into consideration, the carefully neutral “Huh” was probably the best response he could have asked for.

The comm’s video feed flickered every now and then. He wished he could blame the poor connection for Matt’s expression—the furrow between his brows, his lips pressed into a tight line, and the frustrated hunch of his shoulders—but it would be a lie and an excuse and Shiro had enough of those in his life already.

“I fucked up.” Shiro winced and clarified, “I’ve _been_ fucking up for a while now.”

“Hmm.”

He stared down at his hand. He and Curtis had been separated for so long he didn’t even have a tan line to show where his ring had been. He’d stopped wearing it when he noticed Curtis’s bare finger. It seemed only fair, a way to show that he would honor his partner’s wishes. For a while, he’d worn the ring on the chain around his neck, but every day it felt more and more like it was choking the life from him. So the ring and necklace when into one of his dresser drawers. He’d never pulled it out again. He’d never asked for it back when their separation became final, either.

“He transferred off the Atlas,” Shiro said. The words were awkward, stilted, in the quiet darkness of his room.

Matt gave a slow nod. “Sounds like a good choice.”

“It was. For him. Me. For us both.”

Damn it all, when had talking to his friend become so difficult? Shiro ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the silvery strands, and finally dared to meet Matt’s gaze.

“I never should have married him,” he admitted softly. It was the first time he’d uttered the words aloud to anyone, even himself, and something inside him resonated from the truth of the statement.

“You shouldn’t have,” Matt agreed. Again, so beautifully bland, as if he were talking about the weather on Olkarion, not Shiro’s ability to fuck up yet _another_ relationship. “At least you can admit it now.”

Finally, _finally_ , Matt’s stoic mask broke. His friend heaved a deep sigh, pinched at the bridge of his nose, and closed his eyes as if he were in physical pain. “Why?” Matt asked at long last.

The question was painful, brittle from the ache of years’ long confusion and frustration. It cut at Shiro. Cut deeper when Matt asked it again, more forcefully this time. “Shiro, _why_?”

He owed this to Matt. Owed it to a lot of people in his life, but he had to start somewhere.

“I ... I was ...”

Matt stared at him and even though he was hundreds of thousands of miles away, literally across time and space, Shiro was terrified of the exhaustion he saw in his former friend’s eyes.

But he cleared his throat anyway and tried again. “After everything, coming back here was ...”

“A fucking nightmare?” Matt finished for him.

Shiro choked out a laugh and some of the tightness in his chest eased at the ghost of a grin rising to Matt’s mouth. “A fucking nightmare,” he agreed. “The Garrison hadn’t changed. _People_ hadn’t changed. We faced down our own extinction, then refused to help others without knowing we’d benefit, and I—I couldn’t get out. I was back and alive and they swept me up and dusted me off and put me on display and—” He gritted his teeth against the sobs trying to rise up. “I was so grateful to be _alive_ , I didn’t stop to question if there was anything more I could have.”

“You seemed pretty happy last time I saw you,” Matt pointed out. It was only a little venomous.

Shiro didn’t mind. He deserved that.

“The wedding was sponsored by the Garrison,” Shiro said. “They needed a symbol that the war was over.”

“Like a giant, sentient robot settling back into its ship form and going dormant wasn’t enough,” Matt grumbled.

“It wasn’t. Not to them. And when Curtis and I started dating, they were so supportive of it all ... I didn’t think they would only see it as a diversity stunt.”

“Curtis loved you.”

“As much as I allowed,” Shiro agreed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

_That I never gave him a chance, not really. That I was so busy running away from my past, I lost everything I could have had. That Curtis was smart enough to escape and flee a sinking ship while he could._

“Nothing.” He swallowed and tried to sound nonchalant when he asked, “Have you heard from anyone else?”

Matt made a face at Shiro’s inability to play it cool. “Yeah, from time to time.”

“Oh?”

“Hunk and Shay are working on creating food banks on different worlds. Lets them travel and he has the excuse to cook a lot so he can _practice with the local ingredients_.”

Shiro smiled at Matt’s exuberant mimicry.

“Pidge is hanging out with Coran and Romelle on New Altea. They think they’re closing in on a way to track unique Quintessence signatures.”

“They’re looking for Allura,” Shiro said. No point asking it as a question; he knew in his gut what the answer was.

“Lance’s doing, mostly. He swears he can feel her out there.” Matt frowned. “He’s harder to get ahold of. Travels, mostly, checking out hotspots.”

“Think he needs help?”

Matt shook his head. “I doubt it. Besides, I thought you and Atlas were grounded. Garrison’s orders. Dad sounded pretty pissed about it.”

Shiro shrugged. “They can say we’re grounded, but if Atlas and I decide we want to go somewhere, we’re going.”

“Interesting.”

They sat there in silence. The need to ask Matt about the last of his old teammates burned under Shiro’s skin, but he bit his tongue. Matt had always been oddly protective of Keith at the Garrison and time didn’t seem to have changed much.

After ten minutes that seemed more like hours, Shiro awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well, if that’s all, I guess I should be going.”

“If you need to.”

He nodded and reached to cut the call, but Matt swore once, low and foul, and ground out, “I’ll ask him if he wants to call you.”

Relief—stronger than what he felt when Allura confirmed his disease was gone, stronger than when Sendak fell, stronger even than when Krolia told him Keith was awake—flooded through him. “Thank you,” he croaked out to Matt.

Matt gave a curt nod and cut off the transmission.

For the first time in five years, Shiro took a deep, ragged inhalation and felt the weight of the world lift just a tiny bit from off his shoulders.

* * *

Matt stared at the empty space where the video of Shiro had disappeared. He wasn’t in shock. He’d been friends with Shiro for a long time, had traveled with him, fought with him, survived thanks to him, and he understood the monumental implications of their conversation.

He was more concerned for the man slipping out of the shadows that held the bed behind him.

He didn’t look back when he heard the familiar rustle of clothes sliding on. He didn’t ask any trite, meaningless questions. He’d always known their time was fleeting. He’d always known he was a placeholder and he was okay with that.

Keith was a comet, a burning streak that left searing impressions long after you closed your eyes, and rather than try to catch him, all you could do was marvel at the spectacle while it lasted.

He sat there, contemplating Shiro’s call, and let Keith come to him. Keith rested his elbows on the back of the chair. He didn’t lean closer, didn’t nuzzle in against Matt’s neck like he sometimes did when he was trying to remind Matt that their friendship would exist long after they stopped fucking each other.

Instead, he stood there, an ominous shadow at Matt’s back.

“You did that on purpose,” Keith said at long last. His voice was still raspy from sleep and Matt couldn’t hold back the sad smile when he realized he’d probably never hear that sound again.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“You knew I’d wake up.”

“What’s it matter? You said you were over him.”

Keith grunted in response. Matt did him the courtesy of not looking back to see the seething frown he knew Keith would be wearing.

“He didn’t ask about me,” Keith said. He managed to keep most of the pain out of his voice.

“He didn’t want to start another fight,” Matt replied.

He didn’t tell Keith how he knew. What happened between him and Shiro at the bachelor party, all the hurtful truths Matt had thrown at Shiro in an effort to get him to not fuck up his life, those weren’t things Matt felt comfortable sharing with anyone. Not even Keith.

“You two never fight,” Keith muttered.

“You’d be surprised.”

It got him a huff of laughter. “Whatever. I’m going to head out.”

“Need me to drop you anywhere?”

“The wolf will come get me.”

“Cosmo has a telepathic link with you now?”

Keith growled. “Not his name. Doesn’t matter how much you and Lance try to make it stick. It’s _not_ his name.”

“Sure. He doesn’t respond like Cosmo is his name, just like you didn’t wake up the second you heard Shiro’s voice.”

Silence. Horrible, broken silence.

“Fuck you,” Keith said. There was no heat in his voice, only a long-carried misery.

“Never again,” Matt promised.

Keith sucked in a breath and Matt knew he understood. They’d always been good at that.

“See you around, Holt,” Keith said.

Then there was a snap and the familiar smell of ozone filling his room.

“Hey, Cosmo,” Matt called over his shoulder.

A tail thumped loudly against the floor and he laughed as Keith swore. Then there was a pop and Matt knew it was safe to turn around.

He and Keith had a rule: never watch the other leave. Watching someone leave was an act of affection, of love, and they’d both been fucked up too many times in too many different ways to voluntarily open their hearts like that again.

He rose from his chair and wandered out of his room and towards the pilot’s chair. He had a course to set and plans to make. Hopefully Pidge was up this late. This was too much to handle alone, even for him.


	2. I caught an early flight and I made it home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Number One comes home.

“Shiro!”

He stumbled a little when Pidge rammed into him, laughing and squeezing their arms around him. He wasn’t used to such displays of affection from them, but it _had_ been five years, so maybe this was making up for lost time?

“Hey, Pidge,” he said, and offered back a gentle hug.

“Matt gave us the head’s up that you might be coming to visit. How the hell did you get Atlas away from the Garrison?”

He wasn't sure how to explain Atlas's transformation from a large, non-robotic spaceship to a smaller, sleeker cruiser that didn't have room for other crew members. Sometimes it wasn't worth opening the can of worms for Pidge to poke through. So Shiro just shrugged. “I wanted to leave. She agreed. So we left.”

Pidge’s nose wrinkled and they pushed their glasses up higher on their nose. “I heard about the crew from Dad. Sorry they were such shitheads about it.”

“I didn’t mind,” Shiro promised.

He wasn’t lying. When he and Curtis had separated, rumors began swirling around the ship. Then when the separation stretched on, when Curtis found someone else who actually made him happy, when Shiro didn’t object to another man stepping into his space or his bed, the crew splintered. Curtis’s friends and some of his acquaintances requested transfers, which Shiro immediately approved. It left the Atlas crew a little short-handed, but that was better than having his ex-husband’s backers hovering around him at all times, silently judging him for not providing their friend the happiness they thought he deserved.

And Shiro hadn’t. Couldn’t.

No, the division of friends that always came with a divorce was a punishment he’d rightfully earned, so he accepted it. Pidge hadn’t, apparently.

“I can’t believe they found other captains to accept them,” they ranted. “Who would want someone on their crew that wasn’t able to keep professional and personal lives separate?”

He remembered the moment he’d seen his best friend stepping out of a ship, older and stronger and confident in a way Shiro had always imagined he would be. He remembered the clone’s—no, _his_ too, since they were one and the same now—shocking reaction, the bolt of lust that had speared through him and how he’d started pulling away. How he’d rationalized it all by focusing on his role in the team and Alliance, and by convincing himself it was the only way to keep that clean separation between the two halves of his life. He remembered how, after the lions fell and recovered, he’d kept pulling away because it was easier than confronting the truth.

He offered Pidge a wan smile. “I’m not sure it’s that easy for everyone.”

Pidge’s mouth made a little _O_ of apology. They started fiddling with his prosthetic to avoid his gaze. “You’ve still got this giant hammer?” they teased.

“Haven’t found anyone who can replace it yet,” he said honestly. “And after Allura ... it seemed wrong to be ungrateful for a gift she created.”

“Shiro,” Pidge said patiently, “Allura was exhausted when she crafted this. If she could see it now, she’d apologize. It’s atrocious. A monstrosity.”

“I know,” he whispered, and clenched the fingers. He swallowed, fighting down the bile that rose unbidden when he couldn’t deny the truth. “I look like him. Like Sendak.”

Pidge scowled at the arm and poked the empty space where his elbow should have been. It felt like something between a tickle and hitting his funny bone. “Screw this. I’m building you a new one. And I’m not arguing about it. I’ve been bored out of my skull here for days.”

“Matt said you were looking for Allura. Doesn’t that keep you busy?”

They nodded and began leading him towards the large house Coran had built for his “retirement.” A house with a ship landing area big enough to fit several very large robots. A house that looked shockingly like the Castle of Lions and that had more than enough rooms for all the Paladins and their extended families or friends if they chose to visit.

“I’m waiting for a few parts to get dropped off,” Pidge said lightly. “Then I’ll be back to it. So, might as well tackle your arm while we wait.”

“Only if you’re sure,” Shiro said, though he knew it was a losing battle.

“I’m sure. It’ll be nice to see you looking like you did before you lost your damn min—“

“NUMBER ONE!” Coran bellowed from the doorway of the house. “YOU’VE COME HOME?”

“Hey, Coran,” Shiro called back. “I thought you might want an additional member for the search party.”

Coran’s moustache twitched in a very emotional way and Shiro didn’t miss how Pidge shuffled to the side. Their retreat made sense a moment later when he found himself wrapped up in the arms of a sobbing Altean who clung to him like a limpet.

He managed to drag himself inside with Coran still attached, though the man finally released Shiro and wiped at his eyes and nose before embarking on a grand tour of the house. It was almost _exactly_ like the Castle of Lions, Shiro had decided by the time Pidge shooed Coran off to make dinner. Free at last, they led Shiro to the labs, where they began the process of turning off and disconnecting his prosthetic.

He shuddered when he saw it lying there, dark and silent, on the table. Pidge began poking at it; they’d clearly forgotten Shiro was still present. He waited until the occasional cackles and muttered whispers began before wandering out of the lab.

He found himself out in front of the house somehow, unsure how he’d gotten so turned around. The arrival of a decent, though slightly battered, ship landing was a good distraction at least. He stood there, shielding his eyes and listening to the familiar ticking of metal cooling and settling. The blue hatch opened, and out stepped Lance, who froze for a moment when he saw Shiro.

“Hey,” Shiro called to him, horribly aware of his missing arm and his inability to figure out where to put his real hand, since his pockets weren’t big enough to stuff a hand in there comfortably.

Lance didn’t seem to notice. He closed up his ship before walking across the open ground to Shiro. He drew up across from him and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked Shiro up and down.

 _It’s funny_ , Shiro thought, _how I never realized any of them had grown up when we were spending every day together. But five years apart ... five years, and I almost don’t recognize them anymore._

Some part of him hidden deep behind his ribs cramped uncomfortably at the flashing image of a different Paladin, and the mystery of how _he_ might have changed.

“Pidge messaged me,” Lance said at last, distracting Shiro from his mental spiral. “Said we had an unexpected guest.”

“I talked to Matt. He said you were out looking for Allura.” He didn’t stumble over her name, which made him proud. On Earth, amidst the Garrison’s memorials for martyrs and slick lies, it had been easy to accept Allura’s death. Out here, surrounded by his friends—hell, his family, despite everything—he couldn’t help but feel a bit ashamed for giving up so easily. “I should have come sooner,” he said.

“You could have called,” Lance said. “Don’t get me wrong, stealing the Atlas and coming here to help is pretty cool, but a call would have been easier.”

“I didn’t steal the Atlas,” Shiro protested, but Lance gave him a look that he’d never seen on the man’s face before, one that ordered he drop the bullshit. He’d clearly learned it from Allura, and the Altean markings only highlighted that similiarity. Shiro sighed. “Veronica ratted me out.”

“She did,” Lance confirmed.

“Then she probably also told you about the divorce.”

Lance made a face and nodded. “She might have mentioned it. Sorry.”

He’d expected Lance to be the same kid he’d known at the end of the war, but there was a new, measured calmness to him. Despite the losses he’d suffered, he didn’t seem out of place. He didn’t seem to be searching the same way Shiro was. He was comfortable in his own skin, and Shiro envied him for it. He also trusted how centered Lance was, trusted it enough to offer, “It wasn’t really a surprise, was it?”

Lance sighed and uncrossed his arms. “Nah, man. It really wasn’t.”

“You could have said something.”

Anger, swift and shocking, flashed over Lance’s face. “When? We weren’t talking much by that point. I was grieving and looking for Allura, which no one else was helping with, thank you very much, and you were so busy running away from Keith, you would have accepted an Unilu’s proposal without thinking.”

The outburst surprised them both. Lance’s eyes widened and he shut his jaw so quickly his teeth clicked together. Shiro just stood there, assessing the damage dealt by the brutal—but true—statements.

“Shiro,” Lance said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

Lance glanced towards the house and Shiro could finally see the strain from the past few years in the creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “We needed you,” Lance said quietly. “We _all_ needed you.”

Shiro swallowed hard. _All_. He knew the unspoken name Lance included on that list.

“It never made sense,” Lance continued. “You were always the one chasing the stars. You and Allura were great diplomats, but if we stayed too long planet-side, we could see how you’d start looking up when you thought no one was looking. There was always somewhere new to see, someone else who you could help. And then, when we won, the Alliance needed people to go out and help and I figured you would sign up because, God, isn’t that what you’d been working towards your entire life? And instead you hole up on Earth in a Garrison-issued house and look pretty in front of the camera and assure everyone that Earth’s recovery will come first, and that then we’ll wander out among the stars and help all the others impacted by the Galra.” Lance took a breath, as if he’d had to get the words out before he lost his train of thought.

Shiro waited.

And, eventually, Lance, with a true sharpshooter’s aim, finished with, “He loved you the way I loved her. The way she loved me. And you walked away. I don’t understa—” He shook his head and swallowed the rest of it down.

“I’m just a man, Lance,” Shiro said. “I’m far from perfect.”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed with the ghost of a grin. “You’ve proven that plenty. Now, come on. Coran’s probably cooking for us all. He gets all sentimental about having us back together.”

Shiro fell in step with Lance. They were almost to the door when he nudged Lance gently with his elbow and said, “Has anyone ever told you that you are scarily similar to your sister?”

“More and more as time goes on,” Lance mused. He led Shiro inside and launched into a story about the newest things he’d found on his searches.

It was an offer of peace, one Shiro accepted readily. Lance had torn him and his carefully erected lies down so easily he still felt a little shattered. At least it was the good kind of pain this time though, the kind that felt like a broken bone mending or a torn muscle healing. A pain that promised something better if it could be survived.

And survive it, he would.


	3. And if you want me back, you're gonna have to ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith confronts his past and issues an ultimatum.

Shiro had gotten used to quiet dinners with Curtis, then even quieter dinners alone over his sink in his empty apartment. He’d forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by others, to be drawn into tales, to laugh over shared history, and to be able to sit and observe them interacting.

He’d been gone too long.

He saw it in the way they could all talk without words. He noticed it when they laughed at inside jokes. And he _ached_ from how much he had missed it.

The first night passed easily. His borrowed bedroom was eerily similar to the one he remembered from the Castle and it didn’t take much to fall asleep. The next day, he hung out in the lab with Pidge, who pestered him with tons of questions about what he wanted in a prosthetic. Lance pulled him away to help in the garden for a while. He didn’t love the feel of dirt under his fingers, but there was something soothing about the task that settled him a bit more, enough to thank Lance on the way back to the house. The next day passed in much the same way.

The third night’s dinner was when things changed. Pidge called Hunk before dessert. He answered the call and sent up a cheer when he spotted Shiro at the table. They chatted together for a while and Hunk promised he and Shay would come to visit soon; they had one more stop to make on the return flight. It all felt perfectly normal, up until the very end of the conversation, when Hunk looked pointedly at Shiro and said, “It’ll be good to _talk_ to you when I get back.”

Shiro flushed a little and rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I look forward to it.”

Hunk shook his head. “No, you don’t. But you’re not getting out of it. We’ll see you all soon.”

Pidge laughed as she hung up and Lance leaned back in his chair, devious grin in place as he watched Shiro. “You are so busted,” he sing-songed. “Hunk’s gonna give you the lecture.”

“Better to get it now than put it off,” Pidge suggested. “Otherwise you get the lecture _and_ Hunk’s sad puppy eyes because you’ve tried to avoid him.”

Lance shuddered. “The guilt will haunt you.”

“Already does,” Shiro mumbled. Apparently he hadn’t said it quietly enough though, since Lance and Pidge exchanged a concerned look.

“Look, Shiro, you’re among friends,” Lance said. “Why don’t you just tell us the _real_ reason you came all the way out here and get it out of your sys—”

“Number Three!” Coran yelled from the kitchen. “They’re back.”

Lance started to rise from the table, but Pidge jumped up before him. “So soon?” they asked. “I thought the parts would be a lot harder to find!”

“I thought you’d have more time to warn them,” Lance chided them. “Did you even call?”

Pidge, looking more than a little guilty, shrugged. “I was busy looking at the prosthetic and forgot,” they said.

Shiro trailed slowly after Lance and Pidge as they headed for the landing pad, rather than stay and listen to Coran’s mutterings about needing to make _more_ food for everyone. He worried if he stayed, he’d be drafted into kitchen duty.

“You’re taking the blame on this one,” Lance warned.

“I will,” Pidge promised. “Maybe it’ll be fine.”

Lance snorted. “Sure. And Zarkon was a teddy bear.”

“Who is it?” Shiro asked them as they neared the door of the house. Lance and Pidge shared another look, one Shiro couldn’t translate, and Lance said, “Romelle and the others.”

The door opened, revealing a beautiful sunset and another ship. This one was sleeker than Lance’s. Almost all black, with silver accents. It looked like it was built for speed and evasion and intelligent flight and Shiro’s hands itched to get on the controls.

“That’s Romelle’s ship?” Shiro asked, excited.

“Not quite, big guy,” Lance said.

“Then whose is—?”

The hatch opened and Romelle stepped down the ramp. She looked as young and beautiful as ever, though all trace of her pigtails were gone. Her long blond hair was pulled up in an elaborate crown atop her head. She smiled when she spotted Pidge and Lance. Then her gaze fixed on Shiro.

He gulped when her good humor vanished, replaced with a violet glare promising pain. “What,” Romelle asked Pidge and Lance, “is _he_ doing here?”

“I wanted to—”

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” she said coldly. “Pidge? Lance?”

“He wants to help us look for Allura,” Pidge said. “And I would have called earlier but I ... well, I forgot.”

“See, Pidge’s fault, not mine,” Lance said. He raised his voice and tried to peer into the darkness of the ship. “Now, where’s mi princesa?”

There was giggling from the cabin, then a child burst past Romelle, sprinting towards Lance. Shiro had a second to catch the purple fur, the yellow eyes, and the joyful call of “Tío!” before Lance was lifting the child in his arms and spinning her. She tilted her head back, laughing and screaming with joy. At least, she was until she spotted Shiro.

The laughter died and she buried her face against Lance’s neck, clinging tightly to him. Romelle hurried towards Lance and the child, clearly intent on calming the little Galran girl.

“Jun,” Lance said softly, “this is Shiro. Do you remember our stories about him?”

Jun gave a quick nod, but still didn’t speak. Romelle stood beside Lance and ran her hand up and down Jun’s back, a soothing gesture. A mother’s gesture.

Shiro offered Jun what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Hi Jun,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The little girl looked away quickly and struggled in Lance’s arms. He tried talking to her, but whatever he was saying wasn’t good enough because he had to put her down a moment later. Shiro tried to focus on Romelle, who continued watching the girl with adoration and a hint of worry.

“Is she yours?” Shiro asked Romelle, unsure whether he’d get a response.

“No.” But it wasn’t Romelle speaking.

Shiro knew that voice, even from the single syllable. Had dreamed about it. Had longed to hear it again.

He gulped as Jun took off back towards the ship. He watched her throw her arms around a thickly muscled leg clad in a tight, black Marmoran uniform. He watched a pair of strong arms reach down to lift her up. He watched her cuddle against a defined chest highlighted by the uniform’s lines, and he gathered all his courage to raise his gaze even higher.

A violet-hued gaze held his and he couldn’t breathe.

“She’s ours,” Keith said.

Shiro heard the words, but couldn’t process them, not with the sight before him. Keith held Jun with such ease, as if he’d been born doing it. His dark hair was long, so, so long, and braided back away from his face in a style similar to Kolivan’s. The hilt of his blade peeked out from the small of his back where it was strapped. He never looked away from Shiro, even when he nuzzled his nose against Jun’s temple and pressed a kiss there.

“Keith,” Shiro whispered at last.

The hand at Jun’s waist tightened a little at the sound, but Keith didn’t come a step closer. He simply stood there in the doorway of his ship, cradling a Galran child he said was his and Romelle’s, and waited.

“Well,” Lance murmured from somewhere to Shiro’s right, “this is a bit more awkward than I can handle right now. I’ll go ... do anything but stand here and watch.” He left quickly.

“Pidge,” Keith called, “your parts are in the bag by the wolf’s bed.”

Pidge scurried towards the ship, intent on gathering their precious cargo. They managed to shoot Shiro an apologetic look in passing, but that was all the help he got from that quarter.

Romelle was the only one left standing between Keith and Shiro. She glanced from Shiro to Keith, then back, and gave a dramatic, shoulder-heaving sigh. She marched back to the ship and made grabby hands towards Jun. The little girl frowned and shook her head, but Keith whispered something to her and she soon detached, allowing Romelle to carry her inside. Romelle and Keith stood there for a bit, engaged in a heated conversation Shiro couldn’t hear, before Keith rolled his eyes, pressed a kiss to Romelle’s forehead, and promised, “I’ll try.”

Seemingly content, Romelle turned away from him and headed towards the house. Jun hid her face as they passed Shiro, but Romelle didn’t. She eyed Shiro and warned, “You owe him the truth. Don’t hurt him again.” She didn’t finish the threat. They both knew she didn’t need to.

Pidge emerged next, carrying a bag of rattling metallic parts over their shoulder. They nudged Keith’s side with an elbow and muttered, “Surprise?”

“We'll talk about this later.”

Pidge winced and followed after Romelle. They were almost to Shiro when Keith asked, “Have you heard from Matt yet?”

“Ugh,” Pidge groaned, “I’m not your go-between, remember?”

“Pidge, answer the damn question.”

“No. He said he’d be here sometime tomorrow. You want something else, call him yourself. And you both still owe me a new tablet after the filth you sent each other the last time.”

“Filth?” Shiro asked weakly.

“No,” Keith said, at the same moment Pidge confirmed, “Yes. So many pictures. From angles I thought were impossible.”

Shiro looked from Pidge to Keith. He had a feeling he was the butt-end of some cosmic joke. “You—” he began, trying to be cool and failing miserably. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You and Matt?”

Keith’s lips pressed together into a tight line, but he lifted his chin and threw back a challenging. “Off and on. Is that a problem?”

“No,” Shiro lied. His voice hadn’t been this high even before he went through puberty.

“Oh, my God,” Pidge mumbled, “you’re both so dumb.”

“I can take those parts back,” Keith warned.

Pidge made a strange little yelping noise and took off towards the house. The sack of parts clanked every time it hit against their back as they ran. Shiro stood there, staring at Keith, who stared back in with the same inscrutable expression, until the clamor died away completely.

Only when he was sure they were finally alone did Shiro dare to say, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“Kind of a spur of the moment idea.”

Keith glanced away first. He scanned the area, frowning a little when he spotted the Atlas, which looked nothing like it once had. “I didn’t recognize your ship.”

“Atlas thought it might be better to go for subtlety.”

“Clever.”

“Oh?”

“If I’d spotted her on approach, I would have dropped Rommie and Jun and left.”

It hurt more than he expected. How many years had Keith chased after him, fighting for them to stay in sight of each other? How had he broken their friendship so deeply Keith would rather flee his presence than see him again?

He could mull over those questions later, when he was safe in Atlas and Earth-bound again. He ducked his head and said carefully, “You should stay here with your family. I’ll go instead.”

“My family?” Keith asked.

“Romelle and Jun,” Shiro clarified.

Keith bit at his lower lip, oddly conflicted, and rested a hand on his blade’s hilt. Finally he said, “We’re not together. Rommie and I. We found Jun on an outreach mission with the Blades. She was in an orphanage.” Something dark gathered over Keith’s face then, something that made Shiro want to reach out to comfort him. “A lot has gotten better since the end of the war, but some planets aren’t the best places for Galran children. We couldn’t leave her there, but the only way to get her out was to formally adopt her.”

“So you’re a father now,” Shiro said.

It fit the Keith he’d known. Keith, who was so guarded and private about his own time in the system, wouldn’t have been able to walk away from another child in need. Of course he would have done whatever it took to get Jun out of the situation.

“It works out,” Keith said. “When I’m gone for longer missions with the Blades, Rommie watches her here. Everyone else chips in when they can. She loves Auntie Shay, especially.” Keith’s smile was small and warm, tugging up the corner of his mouth, and Shiro memorized the sight, tucking it away in case he never got to see it again.

The smile faded and Keith held Shiro’s gaze again. “She knows about you too. We told her stories. Just give her some time to warm up to you.”

“She can take all the time she wants,” Shiro assured him. “You and Romelle can too. Though, I’m pretty sure she isn’t happy I’m here.”

“She’s worried,” Keith said. “The last time ... I didn’t handle things well.” That steely resolution returned and he stood a little taller, steadier in the same way Shiro had found in Lance. Grounded. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“Good.” He meant it. He had only ever wanted Keith to flourish. He’d never wanted to hold him back.

A new, awkward silence descended. He hated it. He and Keith had never struggled to share the quiet before. Back in their Garrison days, Shiro hadn’t been sure where he left off and Keith began. Matt used to tease him that they were the only two people he knew who could be perfectly content to do absolutely nothing in each other’s presence. Their lives had been a furious shift between schoolwork, adrenaline rushes, and quiet recharging. After they found Voltron, they would wait until everyone else in the Castle went to bed before sitting next to each other on the couches, not needing to _do_ anything. It was simply enough to be able to see each other. And then the war came and the clones and—

“So, you and Matt? Really?” he blurted out, desperate to change his train of thought. Once it was out there in the air between them though, he regretted ever opening his mouth.

Keith gaped at him before recovering. “No,” he snapped, shaking his head as he grabbed a bag from inside, and finally abandoned his ship. “We are _not_ doing this.”

“Keith—”

The hatch closed. Keith stalked past him, shoulders high, bag clutched tightly in hand. “Why are you here, Shiro?”

He hurried in Keith’s wake. “Lance needed help. And Pidge wanted to work on my prosthetic.”

“I meant, why are you _here_ , with me, right now?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing you could say to me that I—”

“I was wrong.” Keith’s mouth snapped shut and Shiro hurried on. “About everything. I shouldn’t have ... I should have _thought_ about what I was throwing away.”

The protective hunch of Keith’s shoulders lessened. But his words were still sharp and biting. “You didn’t throw me away, Shiro. You made a conscious decision to not include me in your life.”

Frustration boiled over and he growled, “I didn’t have a life. The Garrison had expectations and I had nowhere else to go—”

Keith threw down his bag and wheeled on Shiro, forcing him to an unexpected stop. “We both know that’s bullshit. If you said the word, I would have been at your side.” Keith crossed his arms over his chest and Shiro marveled how he could say such things aloud, admit such things, and not look like he was dying in the process.

Shiro couldn’t do that.

As if he recognized his advantage, Keith uncrossed his arms and lifted his hands out at his sides, palms towards Shiro in a sign of surrender. “I loved you," he declared. "I followed you to the end of the universe, _beyond_ the universe, again and again.”

He stepped closer, invading Shiro’s space. He wanted to retreat, to flee from Keith’s determination, but his feet were frozen in place. Keith drew up a few inches away from him, lifting his chin and holding his gaze. “I _loved_ you,” he repeated and it strafed Shiro’s defenses like blaster fire. “I loved you like a brother, like a friend, like a lover, like a soulmate. I loved you and wanted to die with you rather than risk going another day without you. You knew that, and you still walked away.”

“I did,” he agreed. _No place for cowards here, at the end of the universe_ , he reminded himself. _No place for anything but the truth._ “I did because I didn’t deserve to have you.”

“There’s the Shiro I know,” Keith said.

Shiro jerked back as if he’d been burned, as if Keith had reached into his mind and plucked out the worst memory the clone had left with him.

Keith flinched and Shiro knew he’d just remembered the last time someone had said those words, where they’d been and what was happening. The past lay like a minefield between them and there was no telling which step would blow them both away.

“I meant,” Keith said roughly, “that you always do that. Consider yourself unworthy. You always have.” He glanced up and there was the steel of a lion in his eyes. “But I deserve a worthy partner. I deserve someone who I can share my life with, _all_ my life, not just the pretty bits we can put on posters or use for soundbytes. I deserve someone who makes me feel like I’m not buried alive. And I don’t know if you can be that man anymore.”

“I want to be,” Shiro breathed. “It’s taken me forever to figure that out, Keith, and I’m sorry, but I _want_ to be that man, if it means I might have a chance at being with you.”

Keith reached down to take up his bag. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, the first outward sign of his nerves he’d given since they saw each other. “Then prove it.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Don’t go back to Earth yet. Stay. Help us. Face what we’ve done to each other.” Keith’s smile was bitter and twisted and it pulled at the scar on his cheek. “Do that, and maybe then we’ll talk about whether there’s any future left for us. And if you can’t ... then leave.”

It wasn’t a choice, not really. Not when the same choice had been handed to Keith time and again and he’d never failed to _stay_. No, this was as much a choice as it had been for Keith when he held Shiro’s hand as they clung to the shattered pieces of a destroyed cloning facility. It was an echo of a desperate plea— _You can’t do this to me again._

Shiro wouldn’t fail this time.

He reached out his hand, his only good hand, and lifted the bag from Keith’s grip. “Which room do you want this in?” he asked, and they both pretended not to notice how Keith trembled when he replied, “My usual.”

The usual. The room right next to Shiro’s.

The distance between them still stretched like the vast reaches of space, but at least he was here, beside Keith, instead of Earth-bound. A victory.

“Okay,” Shiro breathed. “Okay, Keith.”


	4. Buried myself alive on the inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro witnesses Katt. Hunk doesn't have time for Shiro's pining.

Watching Jun was like coming out of a teladuv and seeing a new galaxy for the first time. They didn’t really know how old she was, but she’d been in Keith and Romelle’s care for two years. Shiro wanted to learn everything he could about the child he hadn’t known existed.

It was impossible to ignore how easily she had stolen everyone’s hearts. A smile won her extra snacks from Coran. She would hand Pidge tools before giggling as she handed over a stuffed animal, a move that always got Pidge to chase her around the lab in a strange game Romelle said had been going on since they met. Lance had a miniature set of garden tools for her and she would doggedly attack weeds he pointed her at as he tended the other crops. She clearly loved her extended family, but her deepest love was reserved for her adoptive parents. For Keith, in particular. Seeing them together was a revelation.

Wherever Keith went, Jun went, a tiny shadow at his side. The longer Shiro watched them together, the more he realized how she’d picked up Keith’s mannerisms. In exchange, she softened his constant need to prove himself. She thought he was enough, and that lesson had sunk so deeply into Keith’s bones he’d changed permanently.

He was so busy observing them, he was surprised when Romelle, of all people, sat down beside him on the grass. She didn’t say a word to interrupt his focus on Keith and Jun play-sparring, which meant he was even more woefully unprepared when Jun spotted them and Romelle waved her over.

Jun looked cautious about it, until Keith took her hand and led her over. Keith lay down on the grass on the other side of Romelle. Shiro looked over, he could see Keith’s chest rising and falling as he breathed, could see the way he wiggled his fingers down into the grass, but he couldn’t see his face. Jun crawled into Romelle’s lap and watched Shiro, who did his best to look unthreatening.

“So,” Romelle said conversationally, “what do you think about kids?”

Jun fiddled with Romelle’s earring. Romelle gently rubbed circles against Jun’s back and child hummed and settled in more comfortably.

“They’re nice?” Shiro offered, unsure where Romelle was going with the question.

She smiled at him. It wasn’t mean, but it wasn’t completely innocent either. “They are. Does that mean you want any of your own?”

“Well, umm, I ...” He lost his train of thought when he noticed Keith was lying perfectly still, listening intently to them judging from how minimal his breathing was, though he tried hard to hide his interest.

“Come on, Shiro, it’s a simple question,” Romelle said. “Did you ever want your own kids?”

“I wasn’t supposed to live long enough to have any, so I didn’t really let myself think about it,” he admitted honestly.

Keith made a wounded sound. He rose without a word and walked away from them, jaw clenched tight and braid swinging from his aggressive walk. Shiro wanted to call out an apology, but he didn’t know what to say. The words stuck in his throat and he clasped his hands in his lap and tried not to feel the aching lump rising in his throat.

Jun looked from Keith to him. Her yellow eyes narrowed and she turned to frown at Romelle. “You hurt Shiro’s feelings. His eyes are getting red. And you hurt Keith’s feelings,” she chided. “You know talking about Shiro dying makes him sad.”

Romelle had the good grace to look chagrined from her daughter’s judgement. It must have been reaction enough for Jun, who got up out of her lap, patted Shiro’s hand once, and hurried after Keith.

Shiro let out a jagged breath and scrubbed the hand over his face.

“I’m sorry,” Romelle said as they watched Jun catching up to Keith. “I didn’t think before I asked.”

The little girl reached up and took hold of Keith’s index finger. Even from a distance, Shiro could tell he was smiling when he looked down at her and began to swing their clasped hands back and forth as they walked.

“It’s okay,” Shiro said, hoping it was true. “If you hadn’t asked me, you could have found out some other way. It’s not like my medical history is private. The Garrison was happy to release what they needed to keep the story of pilot error alive. Everyone knows I was a ticking time bomb.”

“Keith’s ranted about that once or twice,” Romelle said. She continued watching Keith and their adopted child. Shiro was more than happy to copy her, glad the awkward conversation was over.

Fate would never be that kind to him.

“I only brought it up because Jun asked about you last night when we put her to bed,” Romelle murmured. “She wanted to know why your hair is the color of starlight.”

The mental image of Keith and Romelle gaping at each other in horror as they tried to explain Shiro’s death and soul transfer was too funny. Shiro snorted, then chortled, then gave in to the actual laugh he could no longer hold in. He eventually regained control of himself well enough to ask Romelle, “How’d that explanation go?”

She gave him a cautious smile, as if his reaction had surprised her. “We managed to avoid it with a well-timed interruption from Cosmo.”

“You call him that too, huh?”

Romelle shrugged. “It’s his name.”

“Not according to Keith.”

She sniffed. “I refuse to call it Space Wolf for the rest of its life.”

“What does Jun call it?”

Romelle sighed and rested her chin in her hand as she watched Keith and Jun darting back and forth in a strange game of tag. “Space Wolf,” she grumbled.

“Rommie!” Jun called. “Come play!”

Romelle got to her feet, dusting off her still-clean clothes, and glanced over at Shiro. He wondered what she was going to say, whether it would be an invitation to join them or another jibe.

“He hasn’t forgotten,” she said instead.

Shiro grimaced. “I know. He’s still angry. Rightfully so.”

“No,” Romelle said firmly. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What?”

“Keith hasn’t forgotten what it was like to love you,” she clarified.

Shiro held her gaze, despite his deep desire to squirm and look away. It was too important to show no doubt or weakness in that moment.

“He’s tried, but he can’t do it,” Romelle said, ignoring Jun’s louder order to join them. “He’s going to try to force you to walk away first. Don’t.”

“I won’t,” he breathed.

Romelle made a face. “Don’t look at me like that. This isn’t forgiveness. This is purely selfish. I want Keith to be happy.”

“Rommie!” Jun yelled for a third time. This time, she’d stopped chasing after Keith and stood with her tiny fists on her hips. Her glare was an exact replica of Romelle’s and Shiro shivered at the sight.

“She’s going to be a handful,” he warned.

“I am well aware,” Romelle said primly and hurried off to join the game.

It gave Shiro an excuse to rise and flee the field. Watching the three of them together, seeing Keith’s face light up every time he darted out of Jun’s reach was too much. The moment was for family only, and Shiro had proven he didn’t belong there.

_Not yet_ , he told himself as he headed back towards Coran’s house. _But I’ll earn the right back someday._

He was more than a little grateful to spot the new ship parked in front of the house. This one was much larger, designed for cargo, and he felt the stretch of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth when he realized who it would be. He picked up his pace in time to see everyone huddled together as a group, walking from the house to the ship for another load of whatever Hunk and Shay had brought home.

“Hunk!” Shiro yelled and waved his arm to catch his attention.

Hunk looked up from his discussion with Pidge at the sound of his name. His smile was as bright and warm as a sun, and Shiro basked in the comfort of it, letting the familiarity and friendliness soak into his bones.

Hunk opened his arms wide and Shiro gratefully returned the hug. Once he was squeezed tight in the other man’s grip, Shiro realized Hunk had grown in the five years apart. He was taller now, far taller, and he drew back a little to reassess their height difference.

“When did that happen?” he asked, aghast to find himself staring at Hunk’s chin.

Hunk laughed. “Five years is a long time.” He gave Shiro one more squeeze and released him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

Hunk tilted his head towards his ship. “Want to help us unload? Shay and I brought back a ton of new things to try. And some old favorites,” he added, noticing Coran’s sorrowful expression.

At that news, Coran clapped his hands together and crowed, “Well done, Number Two!”

They set about the work, slipping seamlessly into each other’s space. Shiro mostly stayed out of everyone’s way, murmuring a quick hello to Shay when she rejoined them from inside. She patted his good shoulder and welcomed him back, then handed him a bag of vegetables with instructions to take it inside and not open it.

The bag squirmed in his grip.

He promised her opening it wouldn’t be a problem and hurried to finish his task. He hoped the vegetables wouldn’t make it on the night’s menu.

By the time he got back outside, the last few things had been off-loaded, and Keith, Romelle, and Jun had wandered back to the house. Jun planted herself atop Shay’s shoulders, settling a woven flower crown in place, and talked a mile a minute in her ear while Shay conversed with Pidge and Coran about a rare species of beets they’d found during their trip. Somehow, Shay managed to keep up with both conversations simultaneously, a feat Shiro knew he’d never have been able to replicate.

Hunk and Keith stood off to the side, chatting quietly. They shared the space instinctively and Shiro marveled at Keith’s relaxed stance. He’d always been so stand-offish with others, disliking physical contact so much he’d sometimes avoid diplomatic meetings if he knew the alien culture was particularly effusive. Yet he and Hunk stood shoulder to shoulder as they leaned against the ship and watched their loved ones catch up.

The air around them hummed and Pidge peered up, shading their eyes from the sun to see the new arrival. “It’s Matt,” they announced just before the roar of the ship’s engines rendered any further attempts at conversation null and void.

It was comforting to find Matt’s ship was still the dodgy, patched-up rebel scrap Shiro remembered. It was equally comforting to watch him exit the ship with the same long stride and rangy limbs. At least, it was comforting until Shiro remembered the conversation with Pidge and Keith and all its implications.

Implications that could haunt him, since the only thing separating his and Keith’s rooms was a single wall.

Matt greeted everyone with good humor, though he made a beeline for Shiro.

“Glad you could make it, old man,” Matt said, clasping Shiro tightly and patting his back.

“Good to see you again, in person this time,” Shiro told him.

“What do you think of it?” Matt gestured expansively around him. “Lots of improvements since the last time you came to New Altea, right?”

“Definitely,” Shiro agreed. There wasn’t a reason to tell Matt he couldn’t remember much of his first trip to New Altea since he’d been under Haggar’s control and hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery. “How long are you staying?”

Matt glanced back at the others, more than a little fond as he watched. “Pidge wanted me to stick around for a while. They have some ideas about your arm and wanted to talk about other ways to fine-tune the frequencies they’ve found.”

Then his gaze flicked over towards Keith and Shiro followed his line of sight on instinct. Hunk had pushed away from the ship and was headed their way. Keith hadn’t moved. But he had noticed the attention. He ignored Shiro for the most part and focused on Matt instead.

Matt gave a rakish grin, Keith raised a brow in silent question, and Shiro wished the ground would swallow him. Matt patted his arm absently and said, “Talk to you later,” before abandoning him.

_It was a nightmare_ , Shiro thought dimly as he watched Matt sauntering towards Keith, who wore the ghost of a smile on his lips. He would rather see Haggar’s gaunt face every night than have this burned into his brain. He’d rather be back in the damn Arena, fighting for his life, than standing here now, unable to protest as Matt reached out a proprietary hand to grip Keith’s waist, forced to witness Keith turning his face towards Matt and murmuring something before greeting him by pressing a fairly chaste kiss to his lips.

A broad chest cut off his view of the pair. “Shiro?” Hunk asked.

Shiro jerked a little at the interruption, looked up, and tried to tamp down his jealousy before Hunk could see. “What?”

“I said, we’re going for a walk,” Hunk repeated. “You didn’t hear me the first time.”

“Imagine that,” Shiro muttered, trying to stare through Hunk’s ribs.

Hunk took hold of his elbow and bodily turned him before they started walking away from everyone else. Shiro wasn’t sure if it was better to not see Keith and Matt together, or if that made it worse. His imagination was pretty good at conjuring plenty of scenarios for him to suffer through.

“Stop it,” Hunk said firmly, breaking him out of those thoughts.

“Stop what?”

“Stop overanalyzing Keith and Matt. You’re not subtle.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled on instinct, though he really wasn’t. He was frustrated he’d been caught so readily and he was confused why Hunk was leading him away from the house proper and towards a small shed in the middle of a painfully green field.

Hunk opened up a gate leading into the field and gestured Shiro inside. He closed the gate behind them and headed for the shed. “They aren’t serious, not really. They’re comfortable with each other is all.”

“ _Very_ comfortable,” Shiro said.

Hunk caught the snark and gave him an arch look. “I don’t want to hear any sarcasm from you. You and Keith had so much sexual tension when he came back from the Quantum Abyss that Pidge and I tried to figure out how we could convert it into useable energy to feed the Castle. And that was _without_ you two sleeping together.”

Shiro flushed and prayed the lecture was over.

It wasn’t.

“Not that you _couldn’t_ have been sleeping with him,” Hunk mused as they came around the corner of the shed and found Kaltenecker inside, chewing cud and looking boringly cow-like. “If you’d even hinted you were vaguely interested, Keith would have thrown you over his shoulder and locked you both in a bedroom for days.”

“What the hell, Hunk?” Shiro gasped. His face had flushed so deeply he worried he’d burst into flames. Flames that would leave him an embarrassed pile of dust that would somehow still relive the horror of the conversation. “You can’t say that kind of stuff out loud.”

“Why not?” Hunk asked, looking genuinely confused as he grabbed a clean milk pail and got the stool ready. He patted Kaltenecker’s side so she knew he there, and started in on the milking. “Everyone knows about you and Keith.”

“Everyone?”

Hunk chuckled and looked up at him with genuine amusement. “You really have been on Earth too long. There are entire fan sites dedicated to you both out here.”

_Was this what a heart attack felt like?_ He leaned over and braced his hand against his knee, trying to breathe deeply and failing. “I—I was _married_!”

“Yeah, that didn’t really matter. Kind of made your fans go a bit more rabid, actually. Though everyone thought you’d be too nice to cheat on him and agreed nothing happen until you were both unattached.” Hunk snapped his fingers and added, “ _After_ the wedding, that’s when it was!”

“When what was?” Shiro asked faintly, afraid to his core of the answer.

“One of the intergalactic porn studios produced an entire line of videos starring Keith and Shiro look-alikes. They actually won some of the industry awards.” He said it like it was common knowledge. Like they were discussing how to fix a broken plate on a critical station.

_Zing! Zing! Zing!_ The milk shot into the pail and Shiro considered drowning himself in the liquid so he didn’t have to hear another word.

“Shiro? You aren’t looking so good, buddy.”

“Hunk ... stop talking.”

Hunk must have heard something in his voice because he finished milking the cow in silence. By the time he was done, Shiro had mostly gathered himself back together. He still couldn’t meet Hunk’s gaze, but at least he wasn’t having a panic attack anymore.

“It’s kinda funny,” Hunk mused as he watched Shiro. “I figured you’d laugh it all off and call it a joke. That’s what you would have done before the wedding.”

“That’s because I was an _idiot_ before the wedding,” Shiro growled.

“No.” Hunk shook his head and patted Kaltenecker’s neck a few times. “You weren’t an idiot. A liar, maybe, or a coward, but not an idiot.”

“Does Shay know how cruel you are when no one else is around to witness it?”

Hunk laughed and led Shiro out of the shed. They crossed the field and passed through the gate. Further ahead, the sounds of conversation and laughter rose and fell, filling the sunny afternoon with a peace Shiro wasn’t sure he deserved.

“Is that what you want?” Hunk asked. Shiro looked askance of him and Hunk added, “Peace. You said you didn’t think you deserved that.”

Great. He was talking out loud. “I don’t think I do.”

“But it’s what you want?” Hunk pressed.

“Isn’t that what everyone wants?” Shiro kicked at a tuft of grass and slowed his pace, unwilling to rejoin the others and have to face Keith and Matt and their ... _whatever it was_ again. “You all seem to have figured it out. I just want to find it for myself.”

“Not to be the bearer of bad news,” Hunk said, “but peace isn’t _found_.” He nudged Shiro’s side gently with an elbow. “You have to fight for it. We all did.”

When Shiro didn’t respond, Hunk continued, “And, just so you know, we’re rooting for you. Even Matt, which I know you probably don’t believe, but it’s true. So figure your shit out.”

Hunk didn’t wait around for Shiro to pick up his pace. He simply kept walking, carrying the full pail like it was nothing, and wandered around the corner of the house. A round of fond cries when up when everyone else spotted him returning.

Shiro reached the corner of the house ... and stopped. He leaned his back against the smooth white stone and took a few deep breaths. He couldn’t walk around the corner, not yet. Not when he knew that he wouldn’t receive the same kind of welcome Hunk did.

_Your own fault_ , the guilty, cynical part of him whispered.

He agreed, but it didn’t change what he had to do. Keith wanted him to try. To be present, to engage in this new life. Leaving would be easier. It always had been.

But he was used to chasing impossible dreams. Kerberos. Surviving the Arena. Stopping Zarkon. Saving Voltron.

He stood up, ran a hand down his face, and steeled himself. Yes, leaving would be easier. But nothing worth gaining was ever easy.

He may not have been as sure as the others were in their lives, but he knew that truth.

And with that in mind, he walked around the corner and back into the fray.


	5. I think the chain broke away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro needs a hand. The Blades are back in town.

Lance left the next day. There was a nearby Quintessence signal he wanted to check out again, he told them all as he packed his ship. Everyone met to make their goodbyes. Jun did her best to crush his neck when he lifted her up for one last hug, and even Keith wrapped an arm around his shoulder as he wished him safe travels.

Lance looked at Shiro before he climbed into the ship and asked, “Will you be here when I get back?”

He said it like he doubted Shiro would be. He said it like he was resigned to an excuse of why Shiro would have to leave.

Shiro lifted his chin. “I’ll be here.”

Lance nodded, gave one last wave, and closed the hatch. They all stayed long enough to watch him take-off and fly into the clear sky. Only when he was a little speck did they finally split apart and wander back to their earlier work.

Pidge dragged Shiro back down to their lab. He balked when he spotted Matt tinkering with the prosthetic. Pidge didn’t notice his trepidation and pulled him further into the room.

“Did you find something?” Shiro asked.

Matt gave a slow nod. The wrinkle between his brows and the way he held his tongue tip between his teeth didn’t bode well about whatever they’d discovered though.

“We’ve made some progress,” Pidge promised Shiro. “We’ve figured out how the arm syncs with the port in your shoulder, but there’s a bit more to it than we expected. In the meantime, let me get a few measurements from your other arm again so we can keep similar proportions.”

He dutifully moved through all the poses Pidge requested and let their helper bots scan him again and again. He didn’t say anything when he noticed Keith standing in the doorway, or when Matt saw Keith at last and slipped out of the lab to follow him. He wondered where they were slipping off to, and immediately regretted the line of thinking. Pidge released him eventually and he wandered back upstairs, only to find no sign of Matt or Keith.

“You okay, Shiro?” Hunk called from the kitchen when Shiro passed by, sulking.

“Yeah,” he lied. “Just looking for Matt.”

Hunk frowned. “Why?”

“Ask him about what Pidge is doing with my arm, but I’ll find him later.” Shiro waved to Hunk and fled before the man could begin interrogating him in earnest.

He knew there was no way he would hold up to Hunk’s scrutiny, or that he’d be able to offer any valid rationalization for his ill-temper towards Keith and Matt’s relationship. He had no say over Keith’s life. If he was very, _very_ lucky, he might earn back enough of Keith’s trust to be considered a friend once more. Even that wasn’t a guarantee though, especially if he couldn’t learn to control his jealousy. He needed to start behaving like a friend would, and he needed to do it before Keith got sick of his behavior.

With that new goal in mind, Shiro began to move purposefully through each day. At first, being emotionally available was exhausting. He’d never known how good he was at compartmentalizing things, at instinctively playing whatever role he thought the other person wanted him to play. At the Garrison, people treated him with hero worship or barely hidden contempt. As the Champion, he was a nightmare come to life. As the Black Paladin, he’d been a holy figure. As the Atlas’s captain, he’d been humanity’s last hope and their model citizen.

He didn’t know who Takashi Shirogane was anymore. But that was the man his friends longed to know, so he set about learning who he was right alongside them.

The armor he’d crafted so carefully for so long had to come off. And with every piece he stripped away in short, quiet moments with those he trusted most on Earth or in any universe, he reassessed his own worth.

His conversations with the others began shifting, bit by bit. The first time it happened was an accident. Hunk was cooking and mentioned something about how much Shiro had loved the dish when they’d eaten it on the Castle. Shiro swallowed, gathered his courage, and admitted that it was his clone who had enjoyed the dish. He had the clone’s memories, could watch them in his head like a movie, but he had no memories of his own from that time. He could only relive the clone’s foreign emotions and reactions, both difficult to understand thanks to his lack of context.

Past Hunk would have needed at least one new dishtowel to sop up his tears at such a confession. Present Hunk teared up, cleared his throat, and declared Shiro just needed to test it again. He liked Present Hunk’s response much more, especially when he got an early sample of the dish, which was perfect.

After that, the others started checking in with him when they shared stories or remembered things that had happened after his return to them. Sometimes he learned the clone had been a fairly decent person. Sometimes, like the tense moment Keith shared Shiro's reaction to his decision to train with the Blades, Shiro barely held himself together long enough to escape to his room where he could huddle on his bed and lament a cruelty he didn’t know he had inflicted.

That conversation was one of the worst, stirring up painful memories for them both. Keith didn’t talk to him again for a few days, always finding a reason to slip out of the room when Shiro came in. They both wallowed alone in their mutual misery, until one of Coran’s required “family” dinners brought them back together.

Jun demanded happy stories from all her extended family, as if she knew how much Keith and Shiro were hurting and wanted to distract them. With every good memory shared, with every adventure relived through someone else’s eyes, the guilt and hurt leached away. By the end of the meal, Shiro glanced across the table and caught Keith watching him fondly. He expected Keith to look away, to return to their earlier polite distance, but Keith gave a tentative smile instead, one Shiro returned like a besotted fool.

He clung to that moment as he drifted off to sleep, and his dreams were filled with the hum of speeder bikes, the sting of desert dust against his face, and the weightlessness that only came from a leap of faith.

It got easier after that. He started learning how to balance the good with the bad, something he’d never taken the time to do before. Slowly, Keith began reaching back, finding him when he was doing odd tasks around the house and sitting nearby, or trying to engage him in stilted conversation. Neither knew exactly what they were doing, but they were both trying. Shiro told himself that was enough.

Almost three weeks into his stay, Lance called them directly, instead of leaving a quick message. His face was drawn and Shiro could tell he hadn’t been sleeping. He didn’t try to hide his failure. The quintessence burst he’d been investigating was a bust. No sign of Allura. Nothing except an abandoned village on a nearby moon. He was coming home empty-handed, but at least he was coming home.

Later that night, Shiro came awake to the sound of a ship setting down outside. It didn’t sound like Lance’s ship. The engines were all wrong.

He dragged on a tank top so he didn’t have to tie off the unused sleeve, and padded out of his room towards the house’s entrance. He trusted Coran’s security, he trusted the post-war safety of New Altea, but he hadn’t survived for so long without being cautious.

His ears hadn’t deceived him. It wasn’t Lance. A sleek Marmoran ship had landed outside. There was no cause for alarm though. Keith was already there to greet Krolia and Kolivan as they disembarked. Shiro hung back by the front door, unsure whether he should greet them or try to slink back to bed before anyone noticed him.

Krolia spotted him before he could make decision. “Shiro, you’re still here.”

Unwilling to scamper off like a coward, he stepped out of the doorway to join the trio outside. “Krolia. Kolivan. You both look well.”

Kolivan nodded, his usual taciturn expression in place. Krolia gave Keith a sideways look and replied, “We are. I didn’t realize we would wake you.”

“I thought it might have been Lance,” he said. He should have known the journey would take longer than half a day, but it was still a better excuse than _I’m still a light sleeper from my PTSD and I’m paranoid about unknown visitors arriving while I’m unprepared, especially if people I love are near._

Krolia nodded as if his spoken reason was acceptable. Kolivan was impossible to read. Keith kept his head down and didn’t look at _anyone_.

Shiro knew when he was interrupting something. He gave Kolivan an answering nod and told Krolia, “Well, I’ll leave you all to it. Good night.”

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Krolia replied. The corners of her eyes crinkled in a rare show of amusement at his surprise. “While Keith is here with the kit, we’ll be visiting more frequently.”

“For Blades work?” Shiro asked before he could stop himself. You could take the captain out of the action, but the same need to gather intelligence, to plan, to prepare, remained.

“Some,” Kolivan said, his voice rumbling out into the peaceful night air. “Are you here on Garrison business, Captain Shirogane?”

Keith drew up tight, a tell Krolia must have read instantly. Her eyes narrowed a bit as she focused on her son. Shiro tried to keep his attention on Kolivan, out of a desire to keep Keith from embarrassment, but also because Kolivan _demanded_ attention without asking for it. He was _that_ intimdating.

“I’m not, sir,” Shiro told him.

“When do you return to them?” Krolia asked curiously.

“I won’t be.” His defection had been a nagging suspicion in his mind all the time he’d puttered around Coran’s house and taken in life on New Altea. Now that he’d said the words aloud, now that he’d put that intention out into the world instead of holding it tightly inside him, there was no going back. He swore he saw the shadow of Atlas moving and settling more firmly into the ground, but his ship’s reaction was less important than Keith’s.

Keith, who stared at Shiro openly. His mouth parted slightly in surprise and his brows furrowed, like he didn’t understand. In the moonlight, his plaited hair was twined with silver shadows. He was the most beautiful thing Shiro had ever seen and the urge to fight for him, to prove himself worthy, gave him the courage to be honest.

He drew his shoulders back, squaring off before all three, though his eyes were fixed on Keith alone as he said again, “I don’t belong to the Garrison anymore.”

Keith sucked in a breath. Kolivan hummed, probably filing the information away. Krolia was the only one to break into a true smile. “Good,” she said simply.

It was a dismissal, one Shiro was grateful to accept. He gave a final good night and returned to his room, where he lay in bed and stared at his dark ceiling, wondering what the hell had gotten into him. Much later, he heard footsteps coming down the hall. They passed Keith’s door and paused in front of his. He held his breath. His heart rose to his throat and he waited, every molecule of his body poised to move if he heard the sound of Keith’s knuckles rapping once against his door as they used to. He would open the door, find Keith there, invite him into the room, and then they would ... they _might_ ...

The footsteps shuffled away from his door.

Through the wall, he could hear Keith entering his own room and preparing for bed. Whatever he’d been ready to say to Shiro would go unspoken for now. Shiro clenched his fists in his sheets and told himself he didn't mind, but it would be a long time before he'd succumb to sleep.

* * *

Kolivan and Krolia’s arrival didn’t seem a surprise to anyone else. Apparently, since the Blades had converted from covert operations to covert operations _and_ humanitarian work, the two senior leaders of the organization took occasional vacations. They still talked shop with Keith in low murmurs, but most of their attention was fixed on Jun, who soaked up their presence and switched from one lap to the other throughout the entirety of breakfast.

Once dishes were cleaned up, Keith took enough time to tell Romelle he, Krolia, and Kolivan needed some time to discuss something before wandering off with the pair. Jun was, understandably, disappointed. Shiro was about to offer to take her out to see Kaltenecker when the space wolf popped into the middle of the kitchen.

It stole a piece of questionable bacon substitute off the counter, flicked its tail at Coran’s attempts to shoo it away, and teleported next to Jun. Its appearance cheered her immediately. She dug her hands into its thick ruff and cooed about what a good wolf it was as it snapped up its stolen food.

Without anything to do now that Jun had found new entertainment, Shiro rose to leave the kitchen.

"No, Shiro!" Jun released her death grip on the wolf and reached for him instead, sending his world to a screeching halt. Her hand was warm and soft as only small children’s could be and Shiro felt his eyes burn with unshed tears from the simple touch.

He let her drag him over to the wolf, where she proceeded to show him how to pet it nicely. Her small hand rested on the back of his as she directed his movements. He let her use him like a puppet, too touched by her sudden acceptance of him to do anything but kneel beside her and obey.

The space wolf didn’t mind. It clearly remembered Shiro, since it pressed its nose beneath his chin once in greeting before returning its attention to Jun. Shiro could have stayed like that for hours. Jun chattered on and on about the wolf, about her favorite games to play with it, and why Rommie said she and Keith could never bathe the wolf in the bathtub again. She was enjoying storytime so much, she actually scowled at Pidge when they showed up to bring Shiro down to the lab.

Pidge held up their hands apologetically. “I’m sorry!” they told Jun. “We’re trying to get Shiro’s arm working again and need to talk to him.”

“So it’s important?” Jun asked. Her lower lip jutted out and trembled. Shiro was pretty sure any tears that came would be fake, but he had to give her credit for being an impressive little actress.

“Very,” Pidge said. They shot Shiro a grim look that confirmed it was, indeed, important.

“Do you want me to find you after I’m done talking to Pidge and Matt?” Shiro asked Jun.

She sighed as if the weight of the world had fallen down on her shoulders, but nodded and released him. He was almost out of the kitchen with Pidge when Jun announced to anyone who was listening, “His arm works fine. Did you see him petting my wolf?”

Shiro choked a little—on laughter, on tears ... did it really matter?—and waited until they were out of earshot of the kitchen to ask, “So what’s wrong?”

Turns out that what was wrong was that Pidge and Matt were at a loss of what to do.

Matt, looking mortally under-caffeinated and very sleep-deprived, pointed at the arm with a scowl the moment Shiro walked in. “We have all the parts right, but we can’t figure out how Allura harnessed the Quintessence to make this work.”

“I’m not sure I know what that means.”

Pidge pulled off their glasses, rubbed at the divots left on the bridge of their nose, and explained, “We can’t replicate the power source. And the draw to make all the individual components of the prosthetic work isn’t supportable by anything we know of that’s available at our technological level. Or the Galran level. Or Olkari level.”

“Yep,” Matt confirmed, popping the P a little louder than necessary. “You’ve got yourself a magic arm.” He poked the shutdown prosthetic one more time. “Like, _literally_ magic. Science can’t explain this shit.”

Shiro’s mind raced. “So ... what’s this mean?”

“You can take it back and use it like you have been,” Pidge said, “or you can choose to go without.” Matt opened his mouth, but Pidge shot him a death glare that made him shut up. “And when we say _without_ , we mean you can keep the port powered down, or you could get it removed completely.”

“Removed?” he repeated, feeling a little sick at the thought of another operation.

“Not here or now, obviously. We don’t have that kind of training. But Hunk mentioned a nearby system that’s got some incredible doctors who are used to working with the war wounded,” Pidge said.

“Or there’s always the Blades,” Matt threw out. “I’m sure they’ve got plenty of connections.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they do,” Shiro said dully.

It wasn’t _bad_ news. The prosthetic still worked. He could use it if he wanted. But Pidge had been so confident that he couldn’t help but get his own hopes up, dreaming of what it would be like to not have a constant reminder of his past floating awkwardly at his side all the time. To not look in the mirror and have to actively remind himself he hadn’t become Sendak in human form.

“Shiro?” Pidge asked quietly. “Are you okay?”

Was he?

Probably not. He reached for a chair, then abandoned the thought of sitting down when he saw the pile of miscellaneous parts resting on it.

He probably wasn’t okay, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Why had he been so attached to that arm anyway? He’d gone days without it and hadn’t missed it as much as he thought he would. There’d be an adjustment period if he chose not to put it back on, but he could survive that. As for being grounded ... Atlas could transform however she wanted, so she'd probably adjust so he could pilot her more easily. Yeah, he'd definitely be able to fly still. The guilt of worrying he wasn’t honoring Allura if he walked away from it though ... that would be harder to overcome.

“She wouldn’t mind, would she?” he whispered, refusing to look at Pidge or Matt.

Pidge made a soft noise he couldn’t translate. They cleared their throat. “I don’t think so."

So it wasn’t just him thinking that. Holding onto the arm wasn’t honoring Allura. Honoring Allura meant finding a way to live with himself, to love others deeply because at least he was fucking alive and _could_. Honoring Allura meant putting the past away and living from a place of hope, not safety. She’d taught him so much, but it wasn’t until he stood in front of that table, staring down at an arm he’d never liked, that he _knew_ she would want him to make the decision for himself, and himself alone.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that I’ll leave it here for now.”

_Trust yourself, Paladin_ , Allura seemed to whisper to him.

He dragged his remaining hand through his hair, exhaled, and added, “And maybe in a while ... Maybe we can see if there’s anyone who’d be willing to take a look at me.”

Someone hiccupped and he glanced up from the table to find Matt misty-eyed and Pidge wiping frantically at their cheeks.

“Are you sure?” Matt asked, voice rough and thick with unshed tears.

He thought about it for a second and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am. It’s time to move on.”

This time, he was ready for Pidge when they flung themselves forward for a hug. He wrapped his arm around their waist and squeezed, grateful to have one more good thing to hold tightly to.

He left the lab soon after the emotional storms had passed. Matt and Pidge didn’t seem to mind his retreat. There was still work to do on their Alllura-finder and Shiro wasn’t in the right frame of mind to listen to their inevitable bickering. Two great minds in the same small room worked most of the time, but they were both tired and emotionally drained. Tempers would flare quickly and he had no desire to stand witness to it.

Running into Kolivan on his way outside would have been less of a surprise if he hadn’t _actually_ run into him, bouncing off his chest when he turned a corner.

“Captain Shirogane,” Kolivan said, reaching out to steady him.

“Just Shiro now,” he mumbled on instinct. “Sorry for running into you.”

Kolivan waited a moment to be sure Shiro was steady on his feet before releasing him. He tilted his head and inspected Shiro closely before saying, “You appear distressed.”

He almost laughed at the understatement, but didn’t want to offend the Blades leader. He kept his control enough to share only, “Got some unexpected news about my arm from Pidge and Matt.”

Kolivan nodded, but didn’t press for more. Nevertheless, he wasn’t walking away yet, which meant he probably wouldn’t be opposed to Shiro talking to him a bit more. And now that he’d made a decision about the prosthetic, there were other choices to assess and act on. He might as well start with one of the most pressing.

“Could you teach me how to fight?” he blurted out.

The small flare of Kolivan’s nostrils was as close to outright surprise as Shiro had ever seen from the Galran fighter. “Teach ... _you_? You. The Champion. The Black Paladin.”

“I realize it seems a useless request,” Shiro explained quickly. “I know I’m better at fighting than most humans are, but I’ve never had to rely on my left arm before, not entirely. The closest to that was when I got injured in the Arena, and even then, it was only to finish out one fight. I need to relearn everything I know, and you’re one of the only fighters out there I trust to teach me.”

Kolivan didn’t reject him straight off, which was a small miracle. Instead, he crossed his hands in front of him and rumbled, “Why now?”

“I need to know whether or not I can defend the ones I love.”

“Such a test would not be easy,” Kolivan warned. There was something there under his gruff response ... admiration or an emotion close enough to it that Shiro knew he was being offered a rare opportunity.

He swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth and held Kolivan’s steely gaze. “Knowledge or death.”

Kolivan bowed his head slightly. “Knowledge or death,” he agreed. “Meet me on the training deck in two vargas and we shall see if you are indeed strong enough to defend those you ... _love_.”


	6. The best time to drop the worst lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip for two. A bathroom for two. No regrets for one.

Kolivan didn’t pull any punches. Their first training session was brutal, physically and mentally. Kolivan dissected Shiro’s technique, pointing out his sloppiness, his weakness, and his lack of focus. He abandoned sparring completely, perhaps the greatest blow to Shiro’s pride. Shiro knew he was _good_ at hand-to-hand combat. He’d survived from his skills for years. But he bit his tongue, followed Kolivan’s orders, and worked harder.

Their training schedule varied from day to day, mostly due to Kolivan’s need to keep it secret from both Krolia and Keith. Shiro had no desire to answer their inevitable questions either, so he adjusted to whatever hours fit Kolivan’s needs best.

Which was why he was so surprised to step out of his shower and find Keith waiting for him in his room, despite the fact that it was _well_ before dawn. Keith gaped at him. Shiro tried not to show he was having a small heart attack. Whether the heart attack was from the surprise or from the way Keith openly ogled his partial nudity, Shiro had no idea.

He gripped the towel at his waist tightly. “K—Keith, what are you doing here?”

Keith tore his eyes away from Shiro’s stomach and said, “Your door opened for me. I thought it’d be locked.”

It had been. Shiro knew that because he was paranoid about locking doors behind him. But he also knew that on the Castle of Lions, he’d somehow gotten Coran to add Keith’s handprint to his door’s codes. The Altean must have remembered the detail and preprogrammed it here, in his home … because that was normal?

“It’s fine,” Shiro said. “It’s good to see you.” He meant it with every fiber of his being and Keith must have heard that because his shoulders dropped and the tight line of his flexed jaw relaxed.

“What are you doing up so early?” Keith asked him, tilting his head towards the pile of sweat-drenched workout clothes on the floor.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Shiro said. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. He couldn’t sleep because he’d been at Kolivan’s mercy. He took a moment to look over Keith. He was in his Blades uniform, the uniform that had sparked Shiro’s sudden awareness that Keith wasn’t a kid anymore, that he’d grown up, and simultaneously forced Shiro to ignore that fact for his own sanity. Schrödinger’s uniform. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. He glanced down, away from Shiro and ran his fingers over the weave of the blanket Shiro used for a bedspread.

It wasn’t one of the soft, New Altean blankets. Shiro had never gotten used to those. He preferred the slightly rougher weave of Earth’s cheap cotton blankets, which he could use to ground himself when waking from a nightmare.

Keith must have known that, because he didn’t ask Shiro if he wanted something nicer. He traced the pattern and said, “I’m doing a quick trip over to Yevis to deliver some of the supplies Hunk and Shay brought back.”

“Yevis?”

“A moon about two hours away from here. It’s small, but nice. Safe. I like making trips there.” Keith nibbled at his lower lip and Shiro wondered why he was telling him.

“Do you want me to watch Jun while you’re gone?” he asked, moving to his dresser to grab some clothes.

“No,” Keith said. He cleared his throat and finally glanced up from the blanket to look at Shiro directly. “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

* * *

Yevis was a tiny moon of a tiny planet and Shiro loved it instantly. The flight there had been quiet, but comfortable. He and Keith chatted a bit, but avoided weighty topics, and most of their silences had been companionable instead of fraught with unspoken emotions. Keith flew better than ever, which impressed Shiro to no end.

He brought it up as Keith began his approach and the compliment made Keith flush even to the tips of his ears. He stammered out some excuses and used the easy approach as a poor reason to not continue the conversation. Shiro wasn’t really disappointed; it gave him a chance to take in the moon.

Lots of meadows, he noticed, with long, pale green grass that was almost white blowing in ripple patterns. The lower they got, the faster he noticed other details. Wildflowers dotting the landscape and a large settlement of low, round buildings with sturdy roofs. No obvious herds of domestic animals, but tons of planting boxes in neat rows.

Then Keith angled for the landing pad, which was connected to the settlement by a narrow path, and the gust of air from his engine exhaust revealed the truth of the moon’s surface.

“Water?” Shiro asked, leaning forward in his chair as if those extra few inches would give him the information he needed.

Keith laughed. “Yeah. Ninety-five percent of the moon is covered in it. They built the village on the only section of land available.” He set down his ship and began to shut off all his systems without much conscious thought. “Just wait until we get outside though.”

They didn’t need suits thanks the habitable atmosphere. Shiro waited at the hatch with a strange feeling coiling up through his stomach and into his veins. It had been so long, he almost didn’t recognize it. But there it was, taking him over and making him jittery. Excitement. Genuine, raw excitement.

Keith noticed. He always noticed those kinds of things. His gaze was warm and his smile was bright as he asked, “Ready?”

“You have _no_ idea,” Shiro said.

Keith released the hatch, and they stepped out of the ship and onto Yevis.

The first thing to hit Shiro was the smell. He lifted his face toward the wind and sucked in a deep breath. Then another. And another. His mouth watered and his stomach growled.

The air was sweet and warm, like someone had opened an oven door at Christmas, releasing the scent of sugar cookies. It was catching a whiff of the powder rising up from a candy wrapper when you untwisted it and popped it open to reach the treat inside. It was almost painful to take in, it had been so long since he’d allowed himself any kind of sugary indulgence.

At his side, he heard Keith low, raspy chuckle. “Thought you’d like it,” he murmured.

Of course he did. Keith knew about his love of sweets. As a cadet, Keith used to sneak out of the Garrison and Shiro would look the other way. Hell, sometimes he played lookout. Every time he did, Keith would bring him little treats and leave them in his room. Later, when they were traveling through the stars, Shiro would return to his room in the Castle and find some odd alien candy left on the edge of his desk, or on the lump of his pillow beneath his neat bedsheets.

The night of his bachelor party, Keith had tossed him a bag filled to the brim with candies from Earth and far beyond. Shiro, half-drunk at that point, had hugged him and thanked him for being so thoughtful, and then asked why Keith had gotten him so many. After all, they’d see each other regularly, so Keith didn’t have to stock up like that.

Keith went stiff in his arms and pulled away, trying to smile, and saying it was just that he wanted to spoil Shiro before his special day. Matt witnessed the exchange and his expression turned thunderous in a way Shiro hadn’t seen before. Later, after Keith left, Matt ripped into him. Shiro had been drunk during that part, true, but he hadn’t been drunk enough to forget what Matt yelled at him.

 _You fucking asshole,_ Matt had seethed. _He’s saying goodbye. He’s saying goodbye because he’s in fucking love with you and has been forever and you’re marrying fucking Curtis._

Matt knocked the bag of his hands and the candy spilled across the ground. Shiro had yelled horrible, defensive things about his marriage and his future back at his friend, and Matt had laughed them all off. He told Shiro, _Someday you’re going to wake up and realize what you walked away from and those fucking things will be the only sweet thing left in your life,_ before turning on his heel and stalking away.

The next day, they mumbled half-hearted apologies to each other and Shiro walked down the aisle. Keith somehow avoided most of the wedding photographs and Shiro was so busy chatting up the Garrison officials who attended the wedding that he barely took a moment to thank Keith for everything when he came to wish Shiro and Curtis a final goodbye.

A year later, Shiro found he only had one piece of candy left from the bag Keith had given him. They hadn’t talked in over six months, and he hadn’t been able to convince himself to eat the last piece. It felt like it would be a betrayal, a final goodbye, and he wasn’t ready. That should have been a sign. Another could have been that he hadn’t eaten many sweets since, and never even looked twice at anything similar to the treats Keith would have brought him.

Keith didn’t know that. Keith couldn’t have known any of that, but he brought Shiro here, to this moon, on a trip with him simply because he knew it could offer something Shiro would enjoy.

It was a gift, one only Shiro and Keith would recognize.

Shiro spun towards Keith, chest fit to burst, and opened his mouth to speak, but he had already moved away to greet the Yevian heading their way. He held onto the words, just barely, kept them stuffed down because he didn’t want to embarrass Keith or cause an intergalactic incident by interrupting now that the formal greetings had begun.

But he had to say something.

Turns out, he didn’t have an opportunity for a while. The Yevian were thrilled to be visited by the captain of the Atlas and proceeded to show Shiro around the entire town while Keith stayed with the village elder to discuss a Blades issue. Shiro enjoyed playing tourist, appreciated the Yevians’ kindness, and all the impressive woven grass baskets they showed him. He couldn’t help them make any, but they still gave him several smaller baskets, dyed for the colors of the Voltron paladins. He promised he’d hand-deliver them, and carried them with him back to Keith’s ship when it was time for them to leave.

Keith had a worried furrow to his brow as they left Yevis.

“Something wrong?” Shiro asked.

“No,” Keith said automatically. “Just got some news I want to check with Kolivan when I get back.”

Shiro hummed as if he understood, and they flew in silence. They landed back at Coran’s house and Keith did his best to not hurry Shiro off the ship. Shiro tried again to get the words out, to thank Keith, but the man apologized and hurried off to find Kolivan, leaving Shiro alone on the landing pad with a handful of delicately woven baskets.

Jun found him there, equally confused by Keith’s abrupt departure. He’d greeted her and patted her head in passing, but hadn’t slowed of her either. She peered up at Shiro. “Did you have a fun trip?”

“Very fun,” Shiro told her.

“What are those?” she asked, pointing at the baskets.

“Gifts for the other paladins,” Shiro told her. Inspiration struck, sudden and strong, and he grinned down at Jun. “Do you want to help me deliver them?”

Jun clapped her hands. “Please,” she begged.

“First we have to find things to put in each basket.”

He and Jun spent the rest of the afternoon before dinner searching the house and surrounding grounds for the perfect gifts to put in the baskets. Pidge got a shiny stone Jun found by one of the creeks. Lance got a perfectly ripe tomato that stood out against the rich blue of his basket. Hunk got a small vial of floral salts the Yevian had gifted to Shiro; he didn’t mind passing it along, since Hunk would actually know what to do with it. Allura’s basket, a lighter red, was filled with flowers Jun carefully selected. Shiro’s basket, shot through with lines of odd silver fibers, he kept empty. Which only left Keith’s black basket.

“Do you mind if I do this one?” Shiro asked Jun, heart in his throat.

She tilted her head and gave him a thoughtful look, one that reminded him so much of Keith as a cadet he almost laughed aloud. “Okay,” she told him. “I’ll put the others at the table.”

Shiro handed everything over but the black basket and hurried back to the Atlas. He dug around in the drawer of the bedside table in his room, mumbling to himself. Then his fingers closed down on the crinkling wrapper and he pulled out his prize.

If Jun found it odd that Shiro placed an old, slightly beaten-up piece of candy in her father’s basket, she didn’t say anything. She simply took the basket from Shiro and delivered it to Keith’s spot at the table, then dragged Shiro off to play until Coran called them for dinner.

Everyone was thrilled to find their gifts that night. Lance ate his tomato with relish and got emotional when he saw Jun’s offering to Allura. Pidge and Matt told Jun all about the type of rock she’d found. Hunk waxed poetic about his salt to Krolia and Shay, who listened to his rant good-naturedly. Shiro heard all of that around him, but kept his attention wholly on Keith. Keith, who had continued to talk to Kolivan in that low, urgent way he had, who hadn’t even looked at his basket yet.

Jun glanced from Shiro to Keith and back, then cleared her throat and tapped her father’s arm. “Keith,” she whispered, “you have one too.”

Keith glanced over then, and smiled at her before looking at his basket. He stilled and Shiro prayed he understood.

“What did you get?” Pidge called from their seat.

Keith held up the piece of candy silently. He met Shiro’s gaze and something—something electric and heated and heart-stopping—passed between them.

“Oh, shit,” Shiro heard Matt mutter from far away.

Keith lifted a brow at Shiro. _This your doing?_

 _Don’t you recognize it?_ he challenged, just as silently.

Out loud, he only said, “Thank you for today.”

“It was nice to have you along,” Keith said lightly. But Shiro could see how carefully he returned the candy to the basket, and he knew Keith understood.

Later, after dinner, Shiro carried his own basket back to his room. He set it on the desk and turned, but caught sight of something at the bottom of the basket. He reached in and drew out the scrap of paper, unfolding it carefully.

It was a drawing. He immediately recognized Jun in the middle, and Romelle holding her hand. Keith held her other hand, and Shiro had to chuckle that the main identifier for Keith was his Marmoran blade tucked at the small of his back as always. But the sight of Keith holding the hand of someone else, of someone with carefully outlined white hair and who was missing an arm, made him tear up so quickly he couldn’t distinguish the rest of the details. It didn’t matter. Jun’s gift in his basket was perfect.

He found Romelle in the hall and shyly asked her to help him pin the drawing up near his bunk. She smiled when she saw it, but helped without any further comment, kissing Shiro’s cheek and wishing him a good night on her way out.

He fell asleep staring at it, praying to anything out there among the stars to help him make that vision come true.

* * *

Keith was gone the next morning. Krolia saw Shiro’s disappointment and worry and told him in a quiet murmur that Keith was running a quick mission for Kolivan. The news didn’t settle him as he’d hoped.

The day passed slowly, without much progress in anything. Romelle and Jun were off with Shay, Hunk was busy organizing supply drops, and Coran had decided to realphabetize his library. Shiro ran into Lance on his way out of Pidge’s lab.

The man’s eyes were red and a little puffy. He offered Shiro a wan grin when he saw him, one that faded the moment Shiro said, “You don’t have to with me, Lance.”

They went to the garden. Shiro handed Lance tools as he worked, but mostly he listened. Pidge and Matt had fine-tuned the frequencies again. It was a victory, a huge victory.

“But,” Lance continued as he checked over some leaves, “I don’t know if I’m happy about it. It’s just … Like, yeah, we can find her now. And that’s great. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Seriously, Shiro, it _is_.”

“I know that,” Shiro promised him. “I never doubted that for a moment.”

“But if we _can_ find her now, it means that if we … if we d—” He choked up and bowed his head, fingers still gripping the leaf like it was a lifeline.

“If we don’t, it means she’s really gone,” Shiro softly finished for him.

Lance nodded.

“That’s terrifying,” Shiro said. “And it’s okay for you to be scared.”

Lance sucked in a breath. It sounded painful, it sounded like he was drowning, like he couldn’t get the air he needed. But his shoulders heaved and Shiro knew he was fighting down the emotions in an effort to pull himself together. Carefully, slowly, so as not to spook him, Shiro reached out and rested his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“You can be scared,” he repeated, firmer this time.

Lance broke. Shiro didn’t know how long they stayed like that, with Lance hunched over in the garden while Shiro stood watch over him like a silent protector. But after a long while, Lance’s breathing evened out. The tears stopped. And when he finally looked up at Shiro, his smile was genuine. “Thanks,” Lance said.

“Any time,” Shiro assured him. “Do you want to talk about it anymore?”

“Not even a little bit. Let’s talk about something else.” Lance wiggled his brows. “Let’s talk about that look I saw you and Keith sharing last night.”

“Let’s not,” Shiro said, pulling his hand back and fleeing towards the garden gate.

“Shiro, come on! We’re bonding, man!”

“Not over that, we aren’t.”

Lance’s laughter followed him all the way back inside the house. He could handle that kind of good-natured teasing, mostly because Lance hadn’t pushed it too far. Whatever was happening, changing, between him and Keith was still too fragile and precious for him to share with anyone else.

Dinner passed without incident, as did his post-dinner training with Kolivan (brutal, that, especially with a bellyful of Hunk’s cooking). He managed to wait for Kolivan to wander off for the night before he collapsed on the ground to die a private death. After a while, he crawled to his feet and out of the gym, though he sat down against the nearby wall to catch his breath and close his eyes against the pain radiating through his muscles.

Soft footfalls made him open his eyes and glance up at whoever was approaching. Jun was wearing a pair of adorable orange pajamas which were only slightly ruined by the pattern of strange Slav-like caterpillars crawling to and fro.

“Is Kolivan training you, too?” she asked him.

Shiro swiped his hand up his forehead, slicking back his hair with the frankly outrageous amount of sweat he was still producing almost an hour after they’d finished their cool-down. He was out of shape. Badly, badly out of shape. “Yeah,” he managed at last. “Wait ... Kolivan is training _you_?”

“Yes!” Jun hopped in place from foot to foot. “Do you want to see the _move_ he taught me?”

“Sure,” Shiro said, grinning at her emphasis on the word.

Jun tugged at his hand, forcing him to get back on his feet despite his body’s loud protests. She faced him, features screwed into a look of complete concentration. “Okay,” she said, “I’m ready. Try to touch my shoulder.”

“Umm, okay,” Shiro said. He reached out to pat her shoulder.

The moment his hand made contact, Jun wrapped her little hands around his wrist, kicked his shin, and tried to kick higher. Shiro barely avoided it, laughing and calling out, “Whoa! Okay, okay! That’s some _move_.”

Jun grinned up at him, her fangs on full display. “He says I’m getting very good at it.”

“What if the person grabbing you is taller than me?” he asked.

“Then I scratch his arm as hard as I can and duck down so I can run away.” She eagerly pantomimed what she would do, careful not to actually injure him.

“That sounds like a very useful plan.”

“Rommie doesn’t like me training,” Jun said, “but Keith thinks I should. He says he doesn’t want anything to happen to me.”

An iron band tightened around Shiro’s ribs. Keith had been alone for so much of his childhood. Of course he would want his daughter to have a better chance than he had. But the thought that Keith expected there may be a time when he _wasn’t_ there to protect her, that he was planning for that worse case scenario he had had to face growing up ...

Shiro ignored the fracturing of his heart and knelt down in front of Jun. “I will never let anything happen to you,” he promised her solemnly.

Jun reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight hug. All Shiro could do was hug her back, cradling her against him.

“Keith told me about all the people you saved,” Jun whispered to him. “He said you were a hero.”

“I’m no hero,” Shiro whispered back.

The faintest scuff of a boot against the floor warned Shiro of someone’s presence. He opened his eyes and found Keith standing there, looking a little tired, and holding his side carefully.

“You’re _my_ hero,” Jun said. “Keith came and found me and brought me here. And he couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t saved him. See? You saved Keith and he saved me,” Jun said.

Keith’s eyes were strangely wet and Shiro felt his own prickling from the love he saw in the other man’s gaze. Romelle was right. Keith had never stopped loving him. He had simply convinced himself to stop seeing it.

He swallowed, squeezed Jun a little tighter, but held Keith’s gaze as he told her, “I didn’t save him. We saved each other.”

Keith gave Jun and Shiro the moment before clearing his throat. He grinned when his daughter spun around and spotted him. “What kind of trouble have you two been getting into while I was gone?” he asked.

He knelt down to give Jun a hug, wincing from the movement. Shiro knew that look. Knew that somewhere underneath that perfect uniform, Keith was hurting. But he couldn’t bring that up yet, not with Jun here.

“I thought you were supposed to be in bed by now,” Keith chided her gently when she finally detached from him.

“Rommie said I could get some water,” Jun explained, “and Coran was in the kitchen so we had milkshakes, but you can’t tell Rommie. And then I brushed my teeth again and then I found Shiro and now you’re back!” She hugged Keith again and mumbled into his neck, “Are you coming to bed too?”

“Yeah, soon, sweetheart,” Keith told her. “I’ve just got a few things to do first. You don’t want me crawling in and getting the sheets all dirty, do you?”

Jun wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “That’s gross, Keith.”

“Well, then, you run off and tell Rommie I’m on my way. I’ll be there before you know it.”

The moment she was gone, running off down the hallway, Shiro moved in.

Keith started to argue when Shiro got his hand under Keith’s elbow, but his protests died out in a groan of pain as Shiro helped lift him back to a standing position.

“Does Coran have a medical lab?” Shiro asked, worried.

Keith shook his head. “Don’t need one. But the first aid kit in the bathroom might be nice.”

Shiro helped him down the hall towards the large master bath Coran had installed for general use. Shiro had thought it an odd choice before, but he was grateful for the decadence now as he helped Keith settle on the wide edge of the tub. His eyes were closed and he was breathing steadily, if not a little gingerly.

“Lock the door, will you?” Keith asked when he went to close it. “I don’t want Jun sneaking in if she comes back to find me.”

He obeyed. “What happened?”

“Remember when I left after our trip to Yevis? First aid kit is over there.”

Shiro nodded and followed Keith’s indication to the large pack. He pulled it out from its spot on the shelf and set it beside Keith.

“Their leader wanted me to warn the Blades that there were rumors of a Galran splinter group on its way to New Altea. Kolivan reached out to our network and sent me to confirm some of the news we received.”

“Well, it looks like you confirmed it,” Shiro grumbled as he looked over the stocked kit and back to Keith.

Keith chuckled. “I’m fine, Shiro.”

“You’re hurting,” Shiro countered. “Are you going to get this suit off?”

“Trying to undress me already?” Keith quipped back.

The air vanished from the room. Shiro didn’t move. Keith flushed a deep scarlet and looked away from Shiro. “Sorry,” he said, “sorry. Must be hurt worse that I thought.”

“How do I get this off of you?” Shiro asked, hoping his calmness would put Keith more at ease.

Keith reached up to the back of his neck and showed Shiro the hidden clasps. They wrestled Keith out of the top half of the suit and Shiro whistled low when he saw the damage.

“This doesn’t look like you ran into a Galran splinter group,” he said as he pressed gently around the bruised areas. “This looks like you got into a bar fight.”

“Funny, huh?” Keith’s voice was strangely tight and high-pitched.

Shiro glanced up. “Please tell me you didn’t get these in a bar fight.”

“I might have had to visit a bar to check on an informant,” Keith hedged. “And there might have been some Galra there who decided to try to get out before I caught them.”

“And I’m guessing the informant might have turned on you?” Shiro guessed, scowling.

“Kolivan isn’t going to be pleased. Let’s just leave it at that,” Keith said.

“Are you sure you didn’t fracture a rib?” Shiro asked. He pulled out one of the sticky pads that served as a bastard child of an ice pack and a large bandage. God, he’d missed these on Earth. It was so much easier than strapping an ice pack down and trying not to jostle it if you had to move.

“I’m breathing too easily to have fractured anything,” Keith assured him.

“Lift your arm,” Shiro ordered, prepping the pad.

Keith obeyed silently and let Shiro peel off the back of the pad. It took him a little longer with only one hand than if he’d been wearing his prosthetic, but Keith didn’t complain. Shiro carefully covered all the bruised areas with ice pads, then inspected Keith for any other injuries.

“Looks like you’re clear,” Shiro sighed and began zipping up the first aid kit.

Keith stretched a few times, testing the pads’ hold, and made a noise of agreement. They cleaned up their mess together, moving in the same quiet, cohesive way they used to back before … well, before everything.

Shiro gestured to the door, doing his damnedest to not stare at Keith’s exposed skin. He’d done a good job of compartmentalizing earlier, too focused on relieving Keith’s pain to allow himself to notice the new musculature, the plethora of scars he knew didn’t used to be there. He’d been the friend Keith needed, but it was hard to keep that stranglehold on self-control when they stood apart now, silently watching each other.

He cleared his throat and croaked, “Need anything else?”

“Yes,” Keith said simply. He tilted his head. “What do you want, Shiro?”

“Wh-what?”

“You heard me.” Keith was too brave to look away from him, but Shiro hadn’t expected this conversation yet. He hadn’t earned it yet. “What do you want from me, Shiro?”

“I—I—” He couldn’t lie, not over this. Keith would know and whatever trust they’d rebuilt would be gone. He couldn’t lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the truth either because Keith wouldn’t be ready for that either. Not after everything he’d done.

“Takashi.”

Shiro shut his eyes, overwhelmed by the sound of his name on Keith’s lips. Fingers brushed softly, tentatively, down his arm and he reached back, clasping Keith’s hand in his. Hold tight. Hold like the world was falling down around them because maybe it was.

“Tell me,” Keith urged and he was so close Shiro could feel his warmth, smell the sweat drying in his hair, and he wanted to cry because he didn’t deserve this and wasn’t strong enough to give it up either.

“Stay,” Shiro rasped out.

Keith laughed. It wasn’t mean or cruel. It was confused and sweet and it was the same laugh he gave when Shiro surprised him with his first birthday cake at the Garrison. “You could ask nicer than that,” Keith teased him.

“No,” Shiro said, shaking a little. Oh, God, why was he shaking? “Not you. I mean, let _me_ stay. All I want is to stay with you and—”

Keith kissed like the world was ending. His lips were slightly chapped and he made a low, rattling growl when Shiro dared to flick his tongue out to trace over them. And then Keith was grabbing him by the back of the neck and deepening the kiss and all Shiro could do was groan and let himself be taken apart.

He reached up, cradling the back of Keith’s head in his hand and worked his fingers gently into Keith’s hair, even as their kisses grew more frantic and desperate. _Keith can have anything he wants,_ Shiro thought, dizzy and drunk on Keith’s desire for him, _as long as he doesn’t stop._

That didn’t seem to be in the cards. Keith forced Shiro back, until he came to a stop against the tub and sat instinctively. Keith straddled him and hummed his approval when Shiro ran his hand up and down Keith’s bare back, tracing the lines of scars and spine. The first time Keith broke away from his mouth, Shiro pressed his lips to the column of Keith’s neck, earning a shattered sigh as he kissed and nipped his way lower. He pressed a kiss to his collarbone, a touch that made Keith arch into him. He flicked his tongue over his nipple and Keith swore and ground down against Shiro. The movement made them both moan from the friction against their hardened cocks and Shiro grasped uselessly at Keith’s shoulder.

“S—stop,” Keith commanded.

It was excruciating, but Shiro turned his head and rested it against Keith’s chest, panting and trying to get himself under control. The thunderous beat under his ear at least confirmed Keith was in a similar state, though it didn’t make stopping any easier.

“Keith,” he whispered, but Keith wriggled free of his lap, stepping away and giving Shiro a full view of his debauched state.

His braid was a mess, loose and pulled out of place thanks to Shiro’s wandering hand. His lips were swollen, and his skin was flushed, a beautiful pink extending from his cheeks down his neck, across his collarbone, and lower towards his ribs. At least the ice pads were still in place.

“Keith,” Shiro tried again.

Keith shook his head. “I need to go,” he whispered.

Shiro clenched the hand hidden against his thigh and tried to nod or smile or give some sign he wasn’t angry. “Okay,” he whispered back.

“I need—” Keith stepped towards him, but Shiro forced himself to stay where he was, to keep sitting there because this was Keith’s decision, not his. And it was the right thing to do, because Keith shook his head and backed further away. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” He smiled even as his heart broke a little and promised, “I’m not sorry at all.”

He waited for Keith to unlocked the door and slip out into the hall. He listened to Keith hurry away and once it went quiet, he rose and went to the door to close it again. His hand ached and he looked down to find crescent moon patterns dug deep into the flesh of his palm.

But when he reached up to touch his mouth, he could still feel Keith’s impression there, and all the other pains he felt faded more and more with every beat of his heart, every realization that what had just happened, that their kiss, was _real._

* * *

He wasn’t proud to have fled Shiro. It was a dick move, an immature way to escape a situation he wasn’t emotionally equipped to handle. He knew that. It didn’t stop him from unlocking the door to his room and hurrying inside before Shiro followed down the hall after him on his way to bed.

He toed off his boots and finished peeling out of his uniform, wincing a little at the pull on his ribs now that the adrenaline and ice and endorphins were starting to wear off. He slid on a soft pair of sleep pants and padded over to his bed, only to find it already occupied.

As always, Jun had stretched out like a starfish. She snored a little and, every now and then, a twitch would wrack her little frame. Romelle had curled up on one side of their daughter, but she stirred when Keith started to pull back his side of the covers.

“You’re back late,” she whispered. “Bad trip?”

“Not one of my best,” he whispered back.

Even in the dark, he knew he wouldn’t be able to escape her scrutiny. She took in his tousled hair, his dazed expression, and her sleepy gaze sharpened far too quickly. “Did someone help you clean up after?”

He kept his mouth shut and settled in on the mattress, moving Jun’s arm so he could get at least a corner of his own pillow.

“Did you go see Matt?” Romelle asked.

He glared at her and she batted her lashes at him. She knew damn well that Matt had put a stop to any kind of pleasurable activity between them. Keith had complained to her enough about it for weeks. She _knew_ he hadn’t gone to see Matt. Which only left ...

She put the pieces together and gasped. “No!”

He winced and closed his eyes, burying his head into the pillow and praying she took the hint to leave him alone. Instead, one of her bony fingers began poking his shoulder. His uninjured shoulder, thankfully, but it was still annoying as hell. He squinted out one eye and slapped at her hand, which made her huff and point down at Jun, reminding him to be careful to not wake her.

He made a face. Romelle made one back. And then, when his guard was down, she went for the killing strike. “You saw _Shiro_ instead?”

“He wanted to help,” Keith muttered, ignoring her squeak when he confirmed her suspicions. “And it ... devolved from there.”

He expected support from her. He expected her to get angry at Shiro for seducing him (even though he definitely had not and that was all his own damn fault). What he got was a very frightening glare and her sternest whisper as she asked, “When are you going to put yourself out of your misery, Keith Kogane?”

“What?”

“Most of us don’t get a second chance. You did. And now you’re trying to run from it.” She poked him again, this time right between his eyebrows. “If you screw this up, I will never forgive you.”

“I’ll think about it,” he told her, too shocked to say anything else but the truth.

It was enough to placate her. She settled back in, looking every inch the sleeping fairytale princess, and left him alone to his thoughts, thoughts that kept him up until long after he heard Shiro return to his own room.


	7. I think I made it a game to play your game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlas ships it. A wrong is righted.

Despite his late night, Shiro found himself awake early once again to train with Kolivan, who had to leave soon to attend to Blades matters. Shiro knew the matters were tied to Keith’s run-in the previous day, which meant the threat was more serious than Keith had originally let on. Before he left, Kolivan told Shiro he was comfortable letting him spar with some of the gym’s dummies.

Shiro was still beaming from the compliment when Keith found him.

“Hey,” Shiro said when Keith slunk into the gym. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore, but fine,” Keith said. “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” Shiro said.

Keith kept to the wall of the gym, closer to the door, and Shiro felt his gut sink. When he’d first started at the Garrison, Keith had done that, kept to the edges of a room like a skittish cat, as if he needed to ensure he had an escape route available at all times.

He needed to know there was no threat before whatever conversation he wanted to have, so Shiro sat himself down and waited, mentally preparing for what he guessed was coming.

It took a minute, but Keith gradually crept closer into the room as he determined Shiro wouldn’t move any closer.

“Look,” Keith said, “what happened last night … It was a mistake.”

There it was. Shiro had wondered if Keith would react this way when he’d fallen asleep last night, but he hadn’t suspected Keith to deal with the situation so quickly. He’d expected some stewing or avoidance. He hadn’t planned on Keith’s directness, but if Keith had decided on honesty, Shiro could return it.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he stated.

Keith’s cheeks flushed. “Yes, it was.”

“So you regret it?”

Keith frowned and looked down at the floor, but didn’t answer. Maybe it was a cruel question to ask, since Shiro knew Keith likely wouldn’t lie, but he remembered Romelle’s advice. He wouldn’t let Keith slip away easily. Not anymore.

Shiro took a slow inhalation and kept his voice as steady and soothing as he could when he said, “I meant what I said last night. I’m not sorry about what happened. I’m not sorry about how it happened, or what happened after.”

That surprised Keith enough that his head snapped up and he finally met Shiro’s gaze.

“I meant the other thing I said, too,” Shiro continued, knowing that if anything would frighten Keith away, it would be this. “I’m staying.”

“We’ll see,” Keith choked out before turning and fleeing the room.

Shiro let him go. It didn’t matter if he’d expected the reaction or not. The rejection burned either way.

He stood and felt the ache in his muscles and joints. Kolivan hadn’t gone easy on him. Shiro moved towards the practice dummies anyway. He began to run through the drills he’d been given, focusing on his form and breathing.

Physical pain was something he was used to. His illness, his imprisonment, his time as Champion, his deaths, his rebirths … he’d survived them all.

What was it Keith had said to him after Allura had drawn him out of the Black Lion? The world was hazy, its impressions too sharp and strong for him to process in anything but a blur, and he’d wanted to retreat back to the nebulous safety of Black’s consciousness. But he heard Keith speaking to him and the desperation in the man’s voice had drawn him back into the world of the living.

_Shiro, please. Fight. You can’t do this to me again._

_Never again_ , he vowed as he took another swing at the dummy. Nothing hurt anymore. His body sang with his might and will and he pushed even harder.

His life would have a purpose, having meaning again, no matter how much it cost him. He would stand here and wait for Keith. And if Keith never chose him, never wanted him again, he would still stand here. He would obey Keith’s plea. He would _fight_.

A loud crack rent the air and the dummy fell apart, destroyed by his onslaught. Shiro paused, panting for breath. Sweat dripped down his face, his body, and he felt more at peace than he had in years.

Only then, in the calm eye of his storm did he realize he’d attracted an audience. Krolia joined him and looked down at the dummy with a wry smile.

“I sometimes wondered why you and my son understood each other so well,” she said. She nudged a shard of the dummy with her boot and shook her head. “This makes it much clearer.”

“I’m not leaving,” Shiro vowed. He didn’t know if it was a warning or a plea for her approval.

“I know.”

She left him long enough to grab his towel off the bench he’d tossed it on. She returned and began wiping down his arm. It was a soothing movement, a slow shuffle of fabric from his collarbone and shoulder down his bicep, a gentle scrub, and one that reminded him of the muscle massages his grandmother and grandfather would give him on the worst days. She continued to work down his forearm and to his hand, where she took her time to wipe off each finger individually. She focused on his other shoulder, unperturbed by the ridges of scarred flesh. Then she wiped the back of his neck and lifted the towel so it covered his head. Slowly, so slowly, she dug her fingers into the fabric and dried his hair, scrunching the towel as she went over his entire scalp.

And the entire time, she spoke softly to him.

“My son,” she said, “has his father’s heart, but my instincts. You hurt him, knowingly and unknowingly. You are here now, trying to heal those wounds. He is a wounded animal caught in a trap. Even if released, he may lash out at the very thing that relieved his pain.”

Her movements slowed and she lifted the edge of the towel to peek under it at Shiro.

“Whatever happens between you both, whatever form your relationship takes in the future, know that I am proud of you for returning. It takes courage to face past mistakes. It takes greater courage to accept the consequences for them.” She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his for a long moment. “My son loves you, Takashi Shirogane, and I now understand why.”

She didn’t comment on the tears leaking down his face. She simply smiled, flipped the towel off his head and onto his shoulder, and walked out of the gym, leaving him to gather himself on his own time.

He ended up returning to his room so he could shower. If he broke down under the stream of water, no one would ever know. Later, freshly cleaned and wearing clothes that didn’t drip with sweat, he visited the main living room of the house.

Hunk and Shay were already there, going over some lists and charts complicated enough to make Shiro flashback to his role in the Garrison. Coran, Krolia, and Jun were clustered together on one of the couch-like pieces, with Coran reading one of Jun’s stories aloud. His theatrical display was plenty entertaining, from his character voices to the pantomiming he did. Jun was enraptured. Krolia was quietly amused, though she glanced up and gave Shiro a cursory inspection as he came into the room. When he smiled at her, she nodded and returned to her role as an audience member.

He was trying to decide where to settle down to read when he heard footsteps pounding down the hall behind him. A _pair_ of footsteps. A second later, Pidge and Matt rushed past him into the room.

Pidge held an odd contraption in their hands, gripping it like it would vanish if they let it go.

“Number Five?” Coran asked, interrupting himself at their unexpected appearance.

“We … we did it,” Pidge stammered.

At their side, Matt nodded and pointed towards the contraption. “We did,” he agreed.

Krolia rose slowly from her place behind Jun, while Hunk leaned forward, steadied by Shay’s grip on his shoulders. Coran looked equally baffled and oddly emotional.

Pidge turned from them to Shiro and held out the device. They were shell-shocked, and Shiro grasped their hands in his, trying to ground them.

“We did it,” Pidge repeated. “We have a signal.”

“Then we should probably go get her,” Shiro said calmly.

There were some traits they all retained from being paladins, no matter how much time had passed. A sudden flurry of motion, of organization and discussion, of planning and preparation began. Krolia and Jun ran to gather Lance, Romelle, and Keith from the garden. Coran focused on medical supplies, while Lance and Shay hurried to the kitchen to pack food. Shiro stayed with Pidge and Matt, gathering what intel he could on the signal’s fixed location, where it was in relation to them, and how long it would take to reach it.

And in the back of his mind, he was already talking to Atlas, whispering to her and asking her if she was willing to help him, to help his family. The warm buzz he felt brushing against his consciousness seemed to confirm her participation.

They all met outside by the ships. Lance was pale and shaking, grasping for Keith as Pidge and Matt explained what happened. Romelle and Krolia had a swift side conversation, which must have determined that Krolia would watch Jun, since Romelle reached out to help Coran with his supplies.

“We need to go,” Lance kept repeating. He hadn’t taken a step towards any ship.

Keith exchanged a wary look with Matt and Shiro. “Who’s going? Mine’s fast, but I don’t think it’s big enough for everyone—”

“Atlas is ready. She says we’ll all fit,” Shiro said. He braced for an argument, but it never came. Everyone simply shifted their focus and headed towards his ship.

Atlas _was_ ready. More than ready, since she’d already grown and adapted for the mission parameters. He heard the excited comments as they loaded and moved towards the bridge, and felt Atlas’s smugness when they realized she’d not only guaranteed enough room for everyone, but had also expanded her medical bay’s area in preparation for Allura’s arrival.

Shiro knew they had to get going, but he couldn’t quite stop himself from watching Keith, who wandered the bridge with the same wonderment he’d held the first time he stepped into the Red Lion. He didn’t look uncomfortable. It probably helped that Atlas had been downsizing slowly; she’d made her first changes to the bridge after Curtis and Shiro separated, her second after a chunk of the crew left, and her most recent shift had come when Shiro set off for New Altea. It meant the bridge was a larger, more spacious version of the Lions’ cockpits, an aesthetic and practical shift Shiro had been especially touched by. As everyone got settled, he joined Keith by the captain’s chair.

“Will you fly her?” he asked Keith quietly.

“Shiro, I can’t …”

“You _can_. There isn’t time to get my prosthetic and we need to use Atlas if we want to get to Allura fast.”

Keith bit his lower lip and glanced at all the controls. “She’s bonded to _you_ , Shiro.”

He took a breath and reached out, taking Keith’s hand and pushing it gently towards the control panel. “You said the same thing about Black, and look how that turned out.” He squeezed Keith’s hand when he started to protest and added, “Atlas is in my head, Keith. She’s seen all my memories of you. She _knows_ you. She’ll fly for you if you ask, I promise.”

Behind them, Lance finally made it to the bridge. “Ready?” he asked no one in particular.

Shiro looked at Keith, patient and hopeful. Keith closed his eyes, sighed, but didn’t walk away. “I’ll try,” he murmured.

“I’ll be right here,” Shiro promised him. “I’ll show you everything you need to know.”

In the back of his head, Atlas laughed at his implication that she wouldn’t adapt to Keith’s needs. _Please,_ Shiro asked her, _please let him help. Please help me show him how much he means to me._

Shiro ran through a quick pre-flight check with everyone as Keith got himself situated. And then, there was nothing else to do but to go.

Shiro recognized the slant of Keith’s brows, the slash of his mouth as he set his jaw. He settled into the controls, closed his eyes, and took a deep inhalation. A moment of unbroken quiet—even Lance didn’t comment on who would be captaining them—and then Keith gave a shocked huff of amusement. Atlas hummed and blinked to life. Panels popped up at the various stations, already adjusted and best suited for the other crewmembers now aboard. Pidge and Matt began inputting their data, while Coran looked over Atlas’s vital stats. Keith stared at the screens before him in wonderment.

“See?” Shiro asked.

“She’s ... something else,” Keith mumbled.

“I know.”

“She’s so powerful, but so ... young. I wonder if Black was ever like this.” A wide grin spread over his face at whatever feedback the ship gave him, and he toggled some of the controls, adjusting Atlas’s thrusters to his personal preferences. Shiro could tell he was favoring speed over all else. Keith glanced back over his shoulder and called out, “Everyone ready?”

Affirmatives flew fast.

He looked over at Shiro then, a smaller, private smile in place. “Ready?”

“With you, always,” Shiro said honestly.

Keith’s eyes softened and his smile went wider and suddenly the Atlas was lifting off the ground and splitting the New Altean sky on its way towards the stars.

Keith flew her like she was an extension of himself, like he’d been born to it, and Shiro could only watch in awe. Briefly, he wondered if this is what it would have been like if the Kerberos mission hadn’t gone to hell, if he’d returned in one piece, without knowledge of an intergalactic war, and if he’d been chosen to go on longer missions after.

There was no doubt Keith would have shot through the Garrison ranks, and at some point they would have been paired up. Keith was the only pilot who could have rivaled Shiro back in those days. And now, watching him adjust to Pidge’s calculations so easily, watching him fiddle with the controls and hum sweet nothings to Atlas as if it wasn’t good enough to simply talk to her inside his head, now Shiro knew Keith would not only have matched him as a pilot. Keith would have surpassed him. _Had_ surpassed him. And that pride burned through him so strongly even Atlas responded, purring back her own contentment at being in such expert hands.

Keith’s brow scrunched at that feedback and his gaze jerked from the openness of space before him and over to Shiro. There wasn’t much he could say, not when Keith was connected to Atlas—and by extension, him—so he shrugged and tried to change the subject. “How’s she feel?”

“Amazing. She’s so responsive,” Keith marveled. “It’s like she can anticipate what I’m thinking.”

“When I first started flying her, Coran said she was learning,” Shiro said. “She’ll push the limits if you let her, though you’ll sometimes get backlash from it later.”

“Matt said you used to get nosebleeds,” Keith mused.

Shiro shot Matt a glare, but the man was too busy talking to Pidge to notice. “She used to be bigger,” Shiro hedged. “We think it was too much for a single pilot. Since she’s downsized, the cerebral load is easier to handle.”

“You should have been more careful.” It was a gentle chiding, one Keith grumbled out on instinct, rather than with any kind of purpose. It was familiar and sweet and Shiro couldn’t help but reach out to rest his hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“You’re one to talk,” he teased back. “But if it makes you happy, I’ll be more careful in the future.”

The muscles under his palm and fingers tightened. He started to draw back, but Keith relaxed and said, “It would. Make me happy, I mean.” He reached up and brushed his fingers over Shiro’s, a fleeting touch, before returning to his task. “And I’ll try to be more careful too.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. Keith didn’t give any indication he wanted Shiro to break their connection, so he kept his hand where it was and enjoyed watching Keith fly.

The coordinates indicated that the Quintessence source—Allura—was only a two hour flight away. It was incredible news and a vicious blow at the same time, especially to Lance, who had searched far and wide for any sign of her. Any of them—Hunk, Lance, and Keith—could have passed her hundreds of times on their excursions. It was a miracle Lance was holding it together so well in the face of such knowledge; Shiro guessed he had stuffed down that guilt to focus on retrieving Allura first, and that, eventually, he’d have to deal with the rest.

The closer they got, the harder it was to stay calm. Lance abandoned the bridge, probably to check his space suit one more time. Coran shifted between silence and telling stories to distract himself. Within spitting distance of the source, Keith slowed the Atlas’s approach until they came to almost a complete standstill.

“Pidge, are you seeing what I am?” Keith asked, glancing between the star-speckled darkness before them and the screen of his controls where a strange, red splotch had appeared.

Pidge tapped at their console and frowned. “Yes.”

Matt rose from his seat and came to Keith’s other shoulder, leaning forward to peer out into the nothingness. “What is it?”

“Can you give us a fly-by?” Pidge asked.

Keith obeyed without question, circling the source. Pidge kept their eyes tight to their screen, humming and hitting buttons on occasion. Coran and Hunk consulted their screens, whispering back and forth. Shiro wanted to ask what the hell was going on since he was lacking his own screen of data, but Keith was their pilot for this mission and he trusted him to make whatever decisions would be best.

“It’s a rift,” Pidge said at last. “She’s got to be inside.”

“Think it’ll behave like the gate to Oriande did?” Shiro asked.

“No,” they declared. “This is different.”

“What’s the plan?” Lance asked, returning to the bridge. His hair was mussed, his eyes rimmed red, and Shiro was sure he’d fled the bridge in an effort to pull himself together before returning to discuss their next steps.

“The source is coming from a rift,” Pidge explained. “Our sensors can read it, but there’s no obvious sign of it.”

Shiro tapped the back of Keith’s chair, thinking about their options. Keith glanced up at him. “What do you think?” he asked.

“Take one of the life pods,” Shiro said at last. “I know it’s small, but you and Allura will fit in it. And we’ll have a beacon to track if you use that.”

Lance nodded and hurried towards the flight bay.

“Lance,” Keith called to him.

He stopped and looked back and Shiro saw the hope and fear etched on his face. Keith must have seen it too, because he swallowed whatever he was going to say and instead gave Lance a brilliant grin. “We’ll get the med bay ready.”

They watched the pod launch and begin its trek towards the rift. It reminded Shiro how much he’d always hated waiting. His childhood consisted of waiting in sterile offices and hospital rooms. At school he waited on test results, on observations and batteries of physical exams to prove he could keep up with his peers when everyone knew he was already beyond them. At the Garrison, he filled his days with a lifetime’s worth of work in case he ran out of time and waited for others to catch up to him. He waited to see Kerberos. He waited for rescue. He waited for the war to end. He waited for death. And now, he waited for life.

Lance piloted the pod smoothly, giving no indication of his nerves. He’d come a long way since his days training as a cargo pilot. He probably would have been moved up to fighter class even without Keith’s expulsion, Shiro mused as he watched him navigating closer and closer the invisible barrier. They watched the blips from his pod and waited for him to disappear. But it didn’t happen. Instead, there was a white glow that grew brighter, slowly taking their vision.

Shiro blinked uselessly against the onslaught. His eyes teared up and he had to lift his arm to block the painful glow. And as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished. They murmured to each other, trying to force the halos of light from their vision.

Coran spoke first. “He’s coming back.”

“Lance,” Keith said, opening the comm line. “Lance, what happened?”

Nothing. Nothing. Then, a shuddering breath and Lance’s teary, but joyous, “I’ve got her. I’ve got Allura.”


	8. My foot on you neck, I finally have you right where I want you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party goes awry.

Three days. It had been three days since their return to New Altea. Three days since Allura was back among the land of the living.

Lance had tried to explain what happened in the rift, but between his impressions and the Altean alchemy that had clearly conspired to give them back their princess, no real explanation made sense. Shiro didn’t need one. He’d lived inside Black’s consciousness for so long before being ushered into a clone’s body that he didn’t doubt anything was possible. Keith wasn’t terribly interested in the _how_ either; he was focused on the result, which was an unconscious Altean in Atlas’s med bay, being tended to by Coran and Hunk.

He’d flown them back to New Altea with a speed even Shiro had marveled at. The moment they touched down, Lance and Coran were moving. Lance carried Allura in his arms and followed Coran, who headed towards the house and the room he’d kept prepared for Allura’s return.

Sometimes, choices made in hope were rewarded.

Shiro still couldn’t believe he stood in front of Allura’s door, hand poised to knock, knowing he’d hear her call him inside. Yet another miracle he’d witnessed in his lifetime.

He knocked and called, “It’s Shiro.”

“It’s open,” Lance called back.

He pushed open the door and found the room comfortably dim. Allura lay in her bed, looking exhausted, but alert. Lance sat at her side, watching her like he feared she’d disappear the moment he looked away. Shiro recognized _that_ look. Keith had shot it at him more than once after his resurrection.

He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure how to put everything into words, how to express how her sacrifice had impact them all. _Except_ , he reasoned, _maybe all I need to tell her is the truth_.

“It’s good to see you again,” he said.

She smiled and another off-kilter part of the world seemed to slide back into place. He swallowed down hard against the rising tears. Lance caught it and rose quickly from his seat.

“I’m going to go get some food,” he told Allura quietly before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek. She closed her eyes and hummed her agreement.

Shiro knew _that_ part of what she was experiencing too. After so long being incorporeal, every touch, every sound, every bit of what made living _living_ could cut so deeply into the senses. It had been that way with Keith. He’d been so deep in his denial of his feelings towards Keith he couldn’t stand to stay in Black. The proximity was too much, too torturous when he’d convinced himself he couldn’t reach out to touch what he wanted. So he’d fled. And he’d been fleeing ever since.

No more.

At least Allura hadn’t fallen for that same lie. She watched Lance leave the room as if she were counting the breaths until he returned. Even after they were left alone in the room, Shiro stood by the foot of the bed instead of rushing forward so Allura could get used to the sound of his breathing, the scent of his soap.

He’d learned that patience and thoughtfulness from Keith, the only one of his friends who had noticed his discomfort after returning to his body. He was grateful he could put it into practice now to help someone else.

It must have worked, because Allura relaxed further back into her pillows and finally focused on him. “Shiro,” she said, and he’d missed her voice, he’d missed _her_ so much.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Confused. Tired. But so very glad to be here,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d ever get back.”

He waited for her to pat the edge of her bed before moving closer. Only then did he sit, reach out, and take one of her hands in his. She squeezed tightly, confirming his presence, and he smiled and squeezed back gently in response.

After a quiet stretch he asked, “Where were you?”

“I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I’m not really sure I was anywhere, in fact. But I could see everything and feel it and …” She trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh, Shiro, I could sense _all_ of you. Some of you were okay, but some of you—” She didn’t say _You, Shiro_ , but he read it through her words anyway. “—some of you hurt so very badly.”

He held his arm out to the side, inviting her in for a hug, and she fell against him, sobbing. He rubbed her back and held her. When he’d been separated from the rest by the astral plane, his only connection had been to Keith, and even that had been buffered by Black’s watchful care. He’d witnessed and, sometimes, experienced Keith’s frustration and sorrow and anger, and it had broken his heart again and again.

To be connected to it _all_ , to every single one of the paladins, and to experience their highs and lows without being able to reach out and advise or help … Allura was strong in a way Shiro couldn’t imagine to have survived that.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her as he held her even tighter. “I’m sorry I didn’t try to help sooner. I’m sorry I forgot what you taught me about our team. And I’m sorry you had to watch me drowning more every day.”

“I was so angry with you,” she whispered. “I didn’t understand how you could let him go like that.”

“I thought it was the right choice,” Shiro said. “It wasn’t, but that didn’t change what I thought at the time.”

“And now?” It was a fragile, hopeful question.

“I can’t undo the past,” Shiro said, “but I’m trying to make up for it.”

His honesty made her cry harder, which is what pushed Shiro over the edge, which meant Lance returned with plates of Hunk’s stress-cooking delights to find them both soggy, red-eyed, and emotionally wrung out.

“Sheesh,” Lance said as he returned to his spot and set the plates down on the bedspread, “I leave you two alone for a few minutes and _this_ is what I come back to?”

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbled. He wiped his eyes, then smiled a bit when Lance reached out both hands to cup Allura’s face before wiping her cheeks clean with his thumbs.

“We needed to catch up,” Allura told Lance.

He hummed and handed her a plate before turning his attention to Shiro. “Thank you for helping. When you first showed up, I thought you would ghost us all again. I’m glad you stayed.”

“I’m staying,” Shiro said. He’d repeat it as many times as he needed, to as many people as he needed. Someday he’d convince them all he meant it.

He was surprised when Lance handed over the other plate with a smile. “Yeah. I know.”

Lance made Shiro leave the plates. He said he’d take them back to the kitchen later, no matter how many times Shiro offered to do the chore for him. He would have argued more, but Allura’s strength was flagging and he decided her healing was more important than his need to be polite.

He found Keith waiting outside in the hall for him. The man unfolded from his position against the wall, throwing the accents of his Blades uniform into sharp relief.

“Is everything okay?” Shiro asked, instantly on alert. He’d gotten used to seeing Keith in casual clothes, and the shift was jarring.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “How’s she doing?”

“Tired, but doing better than I did when I came back.” He couldn’t help the self-deprecating laugh that escaped. “She was always stronger than me.”

“Don’t,” Keith bit out. Shiro looked at him, surprised at the growl in his voice, and Keith swallowed and tried again. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Uncomfortable with Keith’s unexpected defense of him, Shiro changed the subject. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I just … I had a favor to ask you.”

“Anything,” Shiro said.

It startled a laugh from Keith. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shiro said. “I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

Keith’s smile faltered, nearly disappeared. But his eyes were soft as he said, “I do.”

Shiro released a shaky exhalation, relieved and scared at the same time. “Good.”

“You know that they’re planning a celebration for Allura’s return?”

“Hunk said something about it this morning.”

“Romelle got roped into helping,” Keith explained. “She’s going to be pretty busy the next few days, and I’m leaving now and don’t know when I’ll get back …”

“I’ll watch Jun,” Shiro said, guessing at the favor Keith was so reluctant to ask.

“You don’t mind?” Keith asked, and he was so quiet, so nervous, Shiro wondered if this was a bigger favor than he thought.

“Jun is wonderful. And she’s your daughter. That makes her as important to me as you are. I’m happy to help you and Romelle however I can.”

Keith stood there in silence. His expression was oddly tight, and Shiro fought the urge to fidget under his intense gaze. “You really mean that,” he mused.

Shiro nodded.

“Even if this is all I can give you?” Keith asked him. He gestured between them. “This?”

“Keith,” Shiro said and he didn’t even care if his voice broke on that precious name. “If you said I had to stay on Earth and never fly again, but you’d send me one video message a year in exchange, I’d take it. If you said we could be friends and nothing more, I’d take it. If you fall in love with someone else and ask me to stand as your best man at your wedding, I’d take it. If you ask me to leave, if you ask me to stay here, if you ask me to join the Blades, if you ask me to warm your bed, if you ask me to marry you … _Anything_ , Keith. I will do _anything_. Not because I owe you or because I feel guilty. Because I love you and while I could go on living without you in my life, I won’t enjoy life as much. So, yes, I will watch your daughter while you are gone and I will wait every day for you to come back to us.”

He didn’t know how long they stood there in the hall, watching each other after his confession, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in years, Shiro’s heart was _free_.

“Oh,” Keith breathed out. He crossed the narrow distance between them and took Shiro’s hand in his.

Shiro felt a slim, metal device pressed into his palm and Keith curled his fingers around it.

“Emergency communicator,” Keith said, his voice low and strangely husky. “Press it if something goes wrong and the wolf and I will come for you and Jun.”

“Okay,” Shiro whispered and tried not to bereave the loss of Keith’s touch as he pulled away.

Keith took two steps away from him before turning back with such fierceness Shiro almost recoiled.

“Fuck it,” he snarled.

And then his lithe body was pressed against Shiro’s and his hands clasped his face and his lips pressed right _there_ , at the corner of Shiro’s mouth, an oath and curse in one, before he pulled back. “Soon,” he whispered, and hurried off down the hall.

Shiro watched him go, hope singing through his veins. At the end of the hall, Keith paused and looked back over his shoulder. Shiro lifted his hand, still clutching the communicator, and saw Keith smile before he continued on, turning the corner, and vanishing from sight.

* * *

Three days of planning and rushing about culminated in an event opulent enough to honor Allura. Shiro was grateful for the distraction all the work provided. He and Romelle worked together to watch Jun, although Shiro was left alone with her more and more as the official date neared. The night before the party, after he and Romelle had gotten Jun bathed and into her pajamas, Shiro was so exhausted he didn’t think to turn down Romelle’s offer to stay in their room. Instead, he’d collapsed into Keith’s bed beside them and drifted off. The next morning, he woke with his faced pressed into Keith’s pillow and tried not to let himself miss the man, or to read too much into that single word Keith had breathed against his mouth before he left.

_Soon_.

The word haunted him. He knew Keith was off on an official mission; he wouldn’t have left in such a manner otherwise. But Shiro also knew Keith didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep.

And _soon_ could mean so many different things …

“Shiro!”

He dragged himself back to the moment and grinned at the sight of Jun’s scrunched up face. “What?”

“Stop thinking about Keith and hurry up! Hunk said he would save me cake.”

It was embarrassing to argue with a child about the reason for his distraction, especially if he didn’t have any valid rebuttal. Rather than take that blow to his pride, he took Jun’s hand and walked with her towards the common field where everyone else had gathered.

The next hours passed in a blur. After having heard about the Galran splinter group, Shiro expected them to make an appearance. Keith’s emergency communicator was a comforting weight in his pocket. Even with that promise of help, he was on high alert, prepared for trouble, but none came. Instead of enemies, he found family and friends, including some delegates from various Alliance planets who had caught wind of the party and rushed to attend in an unofficial capacity, simply excited to celebrate Allura’s return. He greeted them and enjoyed catching up, but his need to watch Jun meant he never got sucked into long conversations. Jun must have noticed his relief at that because if a conversation went on too long, she’d run up to him with an excuse of why she had to drag him away. Then, as they fled, she’d burst into giggles, which made him start laughing as they ran, earning amused looks from the other guests they passed.

As the night wore on, Shiro relaxed more and more. They sat at a large table with the rest of the paladins. Romelle stopped by when she could, stealing food of Jun and Shiro’s plates as she could, but soon enough she’d be rushing off to help with the next task. Their group swapped stories, shared jokes, and kept trying to one-up each other. Shiro hadn’t laughed so much in years.

The love of his family surrounded him. Shay taught him how to braid flower garlands into a crown for Jun. Hunk kept them well fed. Matt convinced Jun to dance with him, then he and Shiro danced when she demanded it, though they kept laughing at each other and tripping over their feet. Shiro watched Pidge teach Jun how to use physics to defeat the carnival-style games set up, which won Jun a new whistle. He couldn’t wait to see Keith’s face when she played her new prize for him.

They got to visit with Coran and Lance and Allura too, though Shiro didn’t want to steal their time from all the other well-wishers. Allura would have none of that though. She and Jun sat together and talked for a long time while Shiro caught up with Coran and Lance, both of whom were so overjoyed with Allura’s return they had a hard time processing the festivities. Allura began to flag eventually. She lasted long enough for glasses of an exquisite alcoholic beverage to be passed out, and toasted the assembled guests, who roared back their joy at her good health. As the drinking commenced, she and Lance excused themselves to return to Coran’s house so she could rest.

Jun was halfway to sleep. She crawled into Shiro’s lap and rested her head in the crook of his neck while he watched the others celebrating. Romelle offered him a flute of the drink at one point, but he shook his head, content to go without. He simply basked in their joy as he held Keith’s daughter in his arm. The candles were nearly burned down, and the stars overhead were bright by the time they all decided to call it a night.

Romelle had to stay behind to help tear down the essentials, which meant Shiro was on his own for bedtime. He managed to get up without losing his hold on Jun as he followed the others back to Coran’s house. They were all exhausted in that blissfully happy way that came after a trial successfully seen through.

“What was that drink?” Hunk mumbled to Shay as they walked. “It was _amazing_.”

From Shiro’s side, Pidge answered, “One of the delegates brought it for everyone. Not sure who though.” They ran their fingers over Jun’s cheek, smiling at the sleeping child, and added, “We should definitely get more of it. Should we get more tonight?”

Shiro huffed in amusement and nudged Pidge gently with his shoulder. “Tomorrow. You all need sleep.”

Pidge mumbled their agreement and the rest of the walk went by peaceably.

“Are you putting us all to bed?” Matt asked Shiro as they headed for their rooms.

Shiro laughed. “Not a chance. You’re on your own.”

“Aww,” Pidge whined, “come on Space Dad.”

Shiro made a face, which Pidge and Matt both snickered at.

“Not our Space Dad,” Matt told his sibling. “Jun’s though …”

“Bet he could be Keith’s Space _Daddy_ ,” Pidge said with a lecherous eyebrow waggle.

“And we’re done for the night,” Shiro declared, turning his back on them both and heading for his room. He ignored their drunken apologies, though he wasn’t actually angry. He’d let them stew overnight and deal with it in the morning. The image of them hungover and trying to make up to him brought a smile to his face.

He got to their hallway before his smile faded. Without a guarantee of Romelle’s return tonight, he wasn’t sure if he should put Jun down in Keith’s room or not. It didn’t feel right to stay there tonight, not without Romelle’s invitation, but he also didn’t want to leave Jun alone in case she woke up looking for someone.

No, there was no other option. He juggled Jun in place long enough to open his door, then carefully laid her down on his bed. His arm ached from supporting her weight for so long, but there was still more to be done.

Keith’s emergency communicator went under his pillow, within easy reach. He went into Keith’s room only long enough to grab a nightgown for Jun, which would be easier for him to wrestle her into than a full set of pajamas. She roused herself to partial wakefulness long enough to help him change her, then settled back into sleep, burying her head under his pillow. He shook his head at her antics and tucked her in before going about his own nightly routine. By the time he crawled into bed, he was positive Romelle wouldn’t be back for the night, and didn’t worry about leaving her a note. That decision was the last conscious thought he managed before sleep claimed him.

* * *

It was dark when he came awake. He lay still in bed, his mind slowly catching up to his body’s alertness. Jun lay asleep beside him. No one had come into his room. But something had pulled him from the depths of sleep—

There. A noise from the hallway.

Shiro strained to listen. Another noise, a little quieter this time. He glanced at Jun, hoped he was doing the right thing, and rose from the bed, padding softly to his door. Something was off; he felt it in his gut. He pressed his ear close and waited.

Beyond the wall, Keith’s door slid open, but the low, guttural Galran words spoken weren’t Keith’s. He caught a swear, then lost the rest of the sentence. It didn’t matter. He backed away from the door, skin prickling and mind racing.

Someone was breaking into Keith’s room. Someone who wasn’t welcome.

No alarms going off. Whoever had slipped into Coran’s house had done so after everyone was asleep.

And everyone was still asleep, which meant they hadn’t been woken by the strange noises. He trusted his friends. Trusted their instincts. If they hadn’t come awake, there was good reason …

The drinks.

He knew it instinctively, knew without a doubt that he was on his own against whatever fighters were in the hall, especially since Lance and Allura were in a different wing of the house. He moved away from the door back to the bed, reaching for the communicator. He hit the button and held it on the prayer Keith got the message soon. He set the communicator back down and found Jun’s yellow gaze fixed on him.

One of her ears kept flicking and tipping towards the shared wall, as if she could hear the strangers inside her father’s room. She clutched the sheets, terrified, but watching Shiro for instructions.

He lifted a finger to his lips to ask for her silence and she nodded. He helped her out from under the covers. Outside their door, footsteps moved up and down the halls and two voices rasped to each other.

Jun shuddered and tugged at the bottom of Shiro’s tank top until he bent down closer. “They’re looking for me,” she whispered.

“Keith’s coming,” Shiro whispered back. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and promised, “He’s coming and I’ll keep you safe until then.”

He heard a low, metallic clang and sparks spitting. They were forcing the doors open. He wouldn’t be able to keep Jun safe in the house.

Atlas rumbled sleepily in the back of his mind. He reached out to her, not bothering with words or coherent thoughts, simply impressions and sensations. She came to instantly and he smiled when he sensed her sending warning alerts to the Blades, to the other paladins, to anyone nearby who might be able to help. And beneath that all, her firm command. _Bring child. Protect child._

_That_ , they were in perfect agreement on.

The enemies in the hall moved to Shiro’s door. The door pad beeped its denial at whatever they tried and there was the same metallic clang when they set something in place against the lock.

Shiro looked to Jun. “Run for Atlas,” he told her. “No matter what, get to Atlas.”

She nodded again, her expression serious. Shiro’s heart clenched at the sight, at how easily he saw Keith’s impressions on her life. But there was no time for reminiscing. Shiro crouched into the fighting stance he’d been practicing with Kolivan, and prepared.

The door shorted in a burst of scrambled electrical components and the faint waft of acrid smoke. A breath of peace, then the door slid open.

Shiro was already moving. His first attack landed perfectly, an elbow to the throat followed by a kick that sent the first Galran flying backwards. It had taken them by surprise too, so it was easier to get his body between the second alien and Jun.

Jun, who was Keith’s daughter in every way as she slid past Shiro out of the door and began sprinting down the hallway to get outside and to Atlas.

The second Galran still held the door breaker and Shiro used that to his advantage. It was harder this time against an opponent who knew he was there, but he avoided the first awkward swing and managed to throw his opponent to the ground. He spun and followed after Jun, praying he’d bought them enough time.

A high, angry scream came from the living room and Shiro pushed himself harder, faster, to reach her. He skidded into the room and saw Jun struggling against a tall fighter whose clawed hand gripped the back of her skull.

Another Galran stepped in Shiro’s way, blocking his view of Jun. He avoided their first swing, but caught the flash of a blade in the dim light. He adapted, sliding easily into a new stance that gave him better distance, more time to react, and bellowed to Jun, “Now, Jun! Your move!”

Jun’s cry of anger shifted, deepened, and even if he couldn’t see her, her growl told him she understood. The Galran yelped in pain.

Shiro twisted, not fully avoiding the blade’s arc, but lessening the injury. Adrenaline was taking over, just like it had in the arena, and he leaned into it, giving himself and his body over. He ducked in closer like Kolivan had taught and grappled with his attacker. The Galran must not have expected it because the fight shifted, Shiro gaining the upper hand.

He set his leg, braced, and slammed his shoulder in to the Galra’s chest, forcing it backwards over his bent knee. It slammed to the ground with a curse and Shiro gave in to the dark instinct curling in his muscles. He kicked at its chin, reveling at the sound of bones crunching as its head twisted.

“Shiro!”

Jun’s attacker may have lost his grip on her, but that didn’t mean she had escaped. He blocked their path to Atlas, a sharp, cruel grin in place as he watched the child trying to dart past him. He was so caught up in the game he didn’t notice Shiro barreling towards him until it was too late.

Shiro’s hit threw them both back down the hall. Shiro pushed off the ground, bracing his knees and thighs against the alien’s ribs, and swung his fist again and again until the body beneath his went limp.

Small hands tugged at his hand, slipping a little on the blood from his split-knuckles. “Shiro, come on,” Jun commanded.

He obeyed.

Atlas had blazed to life, flooding the landing area with brilliance. Shiro saw the dangers even as they ran towards their last hope. Galran fighters rushed in from the shadows, maybe a dozen, maybe more. Shiro kept pace with Jun, intent only on protecting her long enough for her to reach the ramp extending from Atlas’s opening hatch.

And then a haze of smoke swirled before them and he knew exactly what was coming. He pushed Jun as hard as he dared, flinging her away and to the side, even as the druid burst into corporeality.

The blast of purple energy that hit his chest sent shocks of blinding agony through him, stopping his muscles and sending him to his knees. He heard Jun scream and managed to rasp out, “Atlas,” before forcing himself up.

The druid couldn’t have Jun. Shiro would die before he allowed that to happen.

Another flash as the druid disappeared and Shiro spun, inaccurately predicting its reappearance and taking a sharp slide of a blade to his ribs as punishment. But the pain was worth it. Atlas roared, _Child safe,_ in his head and he laughed because it didn’t matter if they brought Haggar herself back from the dead, no one, _no one_ would reach Jun now.

Another hit, magic this time, not the blade, and Shiro collapsed again. He fought his body, demanding it to move, but with the electric pulse of the magic in his muscles, he could do little but grit his teeth and wait to regain control of himself.

The air echoed with a pop, but this one was different. Sharper. Scented with ozone. Blessedly welcome.

Shiro looked to his left and found Keith and the wolf there, as promised. Keith’s blade was out, the wolf snarled, and Keith’s gaze fixed on Shiro. His eyes widened, but there was no time.

“Druid,” Shiro croaked.

Keith adapted. He always did. Even as the other Galran fighters closed in for a final assault, Keith and his wolf were already in motion, avoiding the druid’s attack. Shiro rose, taking advantage of the druid’s distraction, and focused on the nearest Galran fighter, who held a rough blade in hand.

Jun was safe. Keith was here. Shiro didn’t have to hold it in any longer. He flexed his only hand and let the Champion rise once more.

He could smell ozone, knew Keith was there, flashing in and out of reality around him like a lightning strike, and he reveled in their power as they cut down everyone who dared challenge them, who dared put their family in danger.

With all other opponents dispatched, they focused their attention on the druid. Shiro knew he served as little more than a distraction, but it was enough. It would help Keith get the opening he needed. He hurled himself at the druid the next time it appeared, knowing he would take another lance of magic. He did. But the same moment the druid focused on him, Keith appeared behind it. The Marmoran blade buried itself into the druid’s spine, making a wet crunching noise when Keith pulled it free. The druid gave a gurgled cry of surprise and blinked out of existence, leaving nothing but a foul dust of contaminated Quintessence in its wake.

Keith’s hands were warm against his face and Shiro blinked, trying to surface from the battle haze.

“Jun?” Keith kept asking.

Shiro pointed towards his ship. “Safe. Atlas has her.”

Keith breathed out a sigh of relief and collapsed against Shiro, pressing their foreheads together and breathing in his panting exhalations. “You’re both okay,” Keith marveled.

Things were happening around them. Their family emerged from Coran’s house, shocked and horrified, talking all at once so fast and confused and _loud_ that Shiro growled against the noise as it scraped the inside of his skull. At the same time, the wolf kept blinking in and out of existence and returning with others … Krolia, Kolivan, other Blades who looked equally off-balance and slightly astonished to find themselves in a scene of such carnage.

Shiro ignored them all. He kept his focus on Keith, who hadn’t released his hold on Shiro. If anything, Keith had moved closer, clinging to him like he was afraid Shiro would vanish the moment they separated.

Shiro ignored his screaming muscles and forced his head up to glance at Atlas. _We’re okay_ , he assured her.

Only then did Atlas open her hatch. He heard Jun before he saw her, heard her cry of their names as she ran down the ramp towards them. He grunted when she crashed into him and Keith, but kept his feet. Barely.

Keith kept an arm around Shiro’s neck, but reached down to cradle his daughter, whispering promises of safety to her. Jun didn’t cry, but words spilled from her too fast for Shiro to catch.

He was tired. So tired. Everything hurt, and his mind fought to cling to this moment, to put the Champion back away because it wasn’t needed anymore.

“Shiro,” Keith whispered, and he snapped back to attention, focusing on the beautiful, familiar face before him. “Shiro, we need to get you inside. You’re bleeding.”

Shiro shifted his grip on Keith’s waist, frowning at the stickiness he felt between his fingers. “You too,” he mumbled. “You’re hurt too.”

Jun heard that. Her voice went higher and louder and they were surrounded by people Shiro knew. He saw Krolia’s lined brow, Pidge’s tight-lipped fear, even Kolivan looked worried.

“Shiro,” Keith whispered again. “Shiro, stay with me.”

He chuckled. “Not going anywhere,” he promised. “Never again.”

And then he promptly passed out.


	9. This time I'm not going' to watch myself die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anything. Everything.

“You are a menace,” Shiro told Keith as they unloaded the last bags from his ship.

“You’re not any better,” Keith shot back. He winced a little when he twisted to close the compartment, and Shiro knew the movement had pulled on the slice under his ribs.

He grabbed Keith’s bag from him, ignoring his protests and headed for the tiny living room of the safe house they were staying at.

“I was very responsible,” Shiro argued over his shoulder. “I accepted medical attention and I stayed in bed as requested until I was cleared.”

“Oh, right,” Keith said, deadpan, as he trailed behind Shiro. “Your obeying medical orders for the first time in your life had nothing to do with the fact that you passed out and were unconscious for a while.”

Shiro opened his mouth to argue, but Keith continued on in that wry tone, “Or that Jun was sobbing at your bedside when you woke up or that she ordered you to take care of yourself so she didn’t have to worry about you leaving her too.”

Jun’s reaction might have had an impact on his behavior. He might have cried stoically after Romelle led her out of the room, maybe even long enough that when Hunk had walked in to check on him, he’d simply sighed at the sight and thrown Shiro a box of tissues. Not that Keith needed to know any of that.

“My point,” he said with a sniff, “is that _I_ am the responsible party here and you are—”

He’d fought alongside Keith for years. He’d watched him grow from an angry teen into a confident man. He’d fallen in love with his strength and agile grace before he knew what love was. And despite all the time he’d spent observing and cataloging Keith’s abilities, Shiro never failed to be surprised when Keith did something that forced Shiro to stop and pay attention to him.

Literally, this time, since Keith suddenly went from walking behind him to sliding into place _in front_ of him, forcing him to draw to a halt or risk crashing into each other.

“I am?” Keith drawled, interrupting Shiro’s lecture. He leaned in even closer, so close Shiro could count the individual lines of his eyelashes against his skin, could smell the generic clean of the Marmoran-issued shampoo he still preferred to use, could feel the warmth of his exhalations against his mouth. “What am I, Shiro?”

Shiro looked down at him, shaken to be allowed so close. He hadn’t expected Keith to invite him along on the mandatory R&R Kolivan had ordered. He’d expected even less Keith’s awkward, “We need to talk,” as an explanation for the invite. But he’d hoped. God, how he’d hoped. Keith didn’t strike him as cruel enough to invite him all the way out here to break things off.

And that hope is what gave him the courage to answer honestly, “You are precious to me.”

Keith’s breath caught and a faint flush rose to his cheeks. “You can’t say things like that,” he said.

Emboldened, Shiro asked, “Why not?”

“We need to talk first,” Keith said and stepped away.

“Fine,” Shiro agreed. “We’ll talk. Now, where do you want these bags?”

The asteroid base Kolivan had sent them to was used for small Blade teams who needed a place to lie low and rest. The hangar was barely big enough for Keith’s ship, which is why they’d left Atlas on New Altea. The communal living space was made up of a combined sitting area and kitchen. The bathroom was cramped and shared, and there were a handful of small rooms set off down a different hall. Keith directed Shiro down that hall, where he threw his bag in one room and put Keith’s in the room opposite.

He found Keith puttering about the kitchen when he returned to the main area. Keith glanced back at Shiro and warned, “We don’t have anything fancy here.”

“I don’t need fancy,” Shiro said. He didn’t say the rest aloud— _I need_ you—but judging by how fast Keith looked back to the bags he pulled out of the cupboards, and how even the tips of his ears flushed, he heard the unspoken sentiment anyway.

Keith did his best to make the Galran emergency rations equivalent of mac and cheese, an atrocity that left them both gagging and laughing as they reminisced over their Garrison days, when they’d been forced to smuggle in the dehydrated packs of cheese sauce from civilian stores because the Garrison’s version made Shiro sick every time. The dessert—an oddly gelatinous flan that somehow tasted perfectly neutral—was a bit better.

The best part of the meal was when they settled in across from each other at the table, mugs of steaming hot tea in their hands. Shiro sipped at his carefully. Keith had only said it came from of the planets he’d done work on. It reminded Shiro a bit of a spiced apple cider, with an explosion of warming notes over his tongue, but the base layer was something stronger and deeper. He loved it. He loved watching the steam curl up from Keith’s mug, drifting over the familiar, beloved planes of his face more.

They talked. It came in fits and starts, beginning with the same casual stories they’d share with anyone and slowly drifting into the darker heart of their past. Some moments were so fraught with emotions they had to stop talking to breathe through the pain. Then, the fragrant steam of their drinks made breathing a little easier and filled the air with the reminder that they were here, together, doing their best to work through the wreckage they’d left behind.

Keith was adamant about that. It was _their_ wreckage, not just Shiro’s, no matter how guilty he felt.

“I should have fought for you,” Keith said simply. “I’d spent most of my life fighting for you and I’m not sure why I stopped then, of all times.”

“I’m glad you did though. Because I wouldn’t have let you fight for me and if we’d fought over that … I don’t think we’d be able to sit here together,” Shiro replied.

Keith frowned. “True.”

Shiro abandoned his mug and reached across the small table to take hold of Keith’s hand. He smoothed his thumb over the battle-scarred knuckles as if that would smooth away the furrows of Keith’s brow. “We _are_ here,” Shiro said quietly. “And we are together.”

Keith glanced down at their hands, his expression softening. “True,” he said again.

They lingered like that, quietly basking in the intimacy of the moment, until Keith cleared his throat and tightened his grip on Shiro’s fingers.

“Shiro?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“If I wanted to fight for you … Would you let me now?” Keith asked and it felt like the universe shivered to a standstill. Shiro swore he could hear the echoing song of the stars around them.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“And you’d fight for me?” It was such a fragile question, crystalline and barely strong enough to be uttered aloud.

Shiro squeezed back into Keith’s trembling grip. “Yes. And Jun, and Romelle, and anyone else you cared for.”

Keith smiled, a bright, tremulous thing, and Shiro couldn’t help himself any longer. He kissed Keith like he’d always wanted to, like they were sharing their last breath, like they were breathing for the first time, and he memorized the press of Keith’s lips against his when he kissed back.

 _This_ , Shiro thought dazedly when Keith pulled away and rose from the table, urging Shiro to follow behind him, _this is worth_ living _for._

“What do you want, Takashi?”

“Anything,” he said. “What do you want, Keith?”

“Everything.”

 _Everything._ A proposal as only Keith Kogane could make. A proposal he would never refuse.

He dragged Keith back to him. Kissed him again. Pressed his forehead to Keith’s temple and agreed, “Everything then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There isn't smut here. Honestly, I thought there would be, but these two were so soft in the moment, I decided to leave it where it fell instead. I've no regrets about that. Sometimes hope and the dream of what's to come means more.


End file.
